


Make Them Gold

by ChucklesDaHorse



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, And lots of kisses~, Angst, Cheese, Drabble Collection, F/M, Get ready for some TROPES, It's a Wildehopps dump sweetheart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-08 21:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7773610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChucklesDaHorse/pseuds/ChucklesDaHorse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AKA the Wildehopps bunch</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Senses (Coming To)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA sensational poetry

He looks at her and forgets everything else.

She looks at him and savors every moment she can.

He sees her walking towards him and resists the urge to run and meet her, even if they have to walk back to the same spot he was in before.

She sees the special smile he has for her and stifles a shiver, smiling back and hoping he never smiles at anyone else that way (he doesn’t).

He sees her in a blue sundress one afternoon, when they meet at a park for a picnic on their day off, and his heart stops. The wind almost blows her sunhat away, and watching her press it against her head and giggle when it flops against her ears makes his tongue feel two sizes too large. They go for a walk through the park after their lunch, and when she gets excited talking about an upcoming weekend trip to visit her parents, she bounces ahead without realizing it, so she spins around to face and wait for him, sundress twirling right along with her, and his chest tightens so much he feels he might suffocate right then and there.

She sees him in a black button-down and ruby tie one night, when the whole department goes out to a night club to celebrate a month-long case finally coming to a close, and her breath catches in her throat. He steps out onto the dance floor after being challenged to a dance-off by Clawhauser, and the way he struts in time to the flashing lights and pounding music mesmerizes her. Mid-song, he looks her way and gives her a wink, and for the next half-an-hour her foot won’t stop thumping, her nose won’t stop twitching, and her heart won’t stop trying to beat its way out of her chest.

He sees her standing in the grass, paws behind her back, hat and dress fluttering in the breeze, her eyes and her smile wider and brighter than anything in the world, and he realizes he can no longer last a day without seeing her.

She sees him bathed in technicolor lights, panting and sweating amidst the heat of dancing bodies, loosening his tie and wringing his collar to let off some steam, still giving her that half-lidded gaze and heart-winning smirk he always does, and she realizes that she can never feel as good as she does when he’s around.

He looks at her and sees the world.

She looks at him and makes time slow.

* * *

She says his name and it makes him smile.

He says her name and it makes her turn.

When he hears her calling, he knows it means she wants him around, _needs_ him around, and for that, he can never not smile.

When she hears him calling, she knows he’ll be there for her through thick and thin, always ready to stand by her side and on her side when no one else will.

It’s the way she’ll shout it like a blessing every time he comes back unharmed from a case without her, an announcement that, everyone else _please_ move out of the way, she needs to hug her fox _right now_. The way it comes out a long, low growl after an endless, sleepless night trying to put the pieces of a case together, begging him to somehow make all her troubles go away. The way it blurs into laughter after an embarrassingly bad pun, making her cover her face with her paws so he can’t see just how much he _gets_ to her, even though he can hear it in between her snorts and giggles.

It’s the way he _doesn’t_ say it, calling her Carrots or Fluff or Dumb Bunny instead, making words she once would have slapped a mammal for using against her into sweet, loving titles she more than accepts from him ( _only_ him). The way he’ll use her last name when he’s serious about something, like when she dives so deeply into a case that she goes for days without leaving it be and he has to tear her away from mountains of unnecessary paperwork, keeping her from neglecting herself to death. The way it sounds more precious and holy than anything else in the world when he actually _does_ call her Judy, in the moments when he sees her hurt and immediately leaps into action, yelling that he’ll be dead and buried in the ground before he lets anyone else lay a claw on her, or when he trusts with and unburdens unto her his past troubles and lets his thanks, his appreciation, his absolute gratitude for her being a part of his life escape him in a soft, teary whisper, or when he thinks he might have been too late, that he’s lost her, and he cries out in desperation and denial, _demanding_ that she stay with him, and she hears him and keeps _fighting_ so she can show him she’s alright, so she can tell him she’ll never leave him alone again.

It’s the way she makes it _hers_ , in all the whispers and shouts, laughter and tears, that makes him smile and feel loved.

It’s the way he’ll never not say it, never not be there with her, that makes her light up and turn and face him.

He hears his name, and feels something glow inside himself, and smiles.

She hears her name, and knows the day will be worth it, and turns.

* * *

He finds that he can’t resist the softness of her paws in his.

She finds that she loves nestling her head in the crook of his neck.

The first time she holds his paws, they’re watching a horror movie at his place, pressed together on his only comfy chair, and her eyes remain wide and fixated on the screen while he becomes hopelessly distracted by just how _small_ they are, gripping his palms with dull little claws.

The first time he pulls her in that close, it’s on instinct, to screen her from any debris coming off the burning building in front of them with his own body, and when he does it she feels the fur of his neck against her face and it plagues her mind for the next week.

He learns what it feels like to have them ripped away from him when the nurses tell him he can’t follow her into the ICU and he has to watch, helpless, as her arm swings limply from the gurney barreling through the halls of the hospital to get her some kind of help before it’s too late. For two weeks, he deals with the fact that it no longer feels like _her_ paw, not without all the little twitching and fiddling it did whenever he held it before, as he sits next to her bed and doesn’t let go of it, running a thumb across her wrist, waiting for her pulse to come out of its terrifyingly slow rhythm and return to normal. Then comes the moment when he feels her _squeeze_ , oh so lightly, shocking him out of the doze he’s fallen into at her bedside, and he turns and sees her _smiling_  at him, and she squeezes again, and he wants never to let go of her again, to always feel those squeezes, to always be able to squeeze back because he’ll never not hold her paw in his again.

It becomes a game to her—Let’s See How I Can Fit My Head Into the Curve of Nick’s Neck Today (a working title)—and she _excels_ at it, snuggling close to him whenever she gets the chance, more than thankful that they will always always _always_ hang around each other after work. Movie nights, dinners, board games, listening to music, reading without speaking to one another, all activities become viable battlefields upon which she tries to return her head to its rightful place against the plushness of his neck, where his jaw and her ears curve perfectly parallel to one another, where it seems like that space has simply been _waiting_ for her her entire life. Her most triumphant success comes on one of their late nights, when they’re so tired that they just go back to her place to sleep since it’s closest to the station, and when she wakes up on her tiny bed he’s curled around her, linking their bodies together, his long, skinny arms hugging her to him, his breath tickling her ears, and she has never felt so _warm_ before, and she wants desperately to stay that way with him forever.

Nothing he touches afterwards, no other paw or hoof, not his morning coffee or the paperwork he fetches fresh from the copier, can ever feel as warm, as comfortable, as _right_ as her paw did in that moment.

All her nights feel a little less restful, after that, so she finds herself proposing sleepovers more and more often, even on nights when they’re out of the office on time, and he never says no, is always happy to spend time with her, so she goes to bed most nights all too excited for the coming morning, when she can wake up with her irresistible, foxy body pillow.

He learns what it feels like to lose her grip, and so vows to never let it go again.

She learns how wonderful it is to be his little spoon, and gets greedy with it.

* * *

He can smell her sweat when she’s close to him and it’s driving him _crazy_.

She can smell his musk on days he oversleeps and it’s keeping her up at night.

They go running through the park near his apartment, and often she’ll run twice as many laps around it as him, and on their way back one morning she slumps against him after pushing herself too hard, rubbing her face and her scent into his side, and he’s almost _floored_  by it, stumbles and nearly leaves her sprawled on the ground with him, and he has to laugh it off while his claws dig deep into his palms to keep him from freezing up completely.

It had been a long day on the job, full of unnecessarily long chases and more than enough struggles with those being chased, and he must not have showered that night like he usually does, because she rips off his blankets the next morning to get him up in her usual playful way and unleashes a cocktail of aromas that leave her foot jackhammering uncontrollably for the next twenty-four hours, and she finds it’s _him_ who has to tear _her_ blankets off to get her up on time the following day.

She points out one day that he’s been making this strange face at her sometimes when they make an arrest together, and he has to tell her she’s probably just imagining it in all the excitement of the moment, while inside his brain he’s going completely haywire because he can smell the remnants of her morning workout, and then she says she’s _not_  imagining things, because he’s making the face right now, and stop it, Nick, it’s freaky. He develops a fear of being near her when they’re on a case together, because the moment an incident arises she’ll be off like a bullet and then the sweating will start and all of his bones will turn to jelly and he’ll make the stupid face again and he’ll be useless to her. It haunts and hovers about him like a ghost, and the only way he can fully get it out of his system is to take a long, cold shower and surround himself with other smells, candles and fried food and even his dirty laundry that he can’t bring himself to clean because then _it won’t smell like her_ , and he hates himself and knows he’s disgusting for feeling this way, and if only he could just get _rid_ of his stupid nose, everything would be fine…

Nights become like torture to her, no longer a period of much-needed rest but a sentence to a hot, sticky bed that is no longer comforting because _he’s_ been there too much, leaving his mark all over it, and every night she’s alone she’ll wake from a fitful nap feeling a sort of heat she hasn’t felt since she was in high school experiencing it for the very first time. The only time she gets any real sleep is when he stays over, but even then it’s becoming harder and harder for her to convince him to do so, ever since he started making that stupid face, and that doesn’t even matter anyway since she can’t stand to have him in her bed any more, not when he always leave his _musk_  behind, because she can’t afford to wash her sheets at the laundromat every single day. But there’s no avoiding him, even when she sprints ahead to catch a fleeing suspect and leaves him in her dust, because she knows he’ll just catch up to her and then she’ll have to deal with the aromas his tail leaves on her whenever it swishes by and brushes her legs and _god_ , how many hours of sleep has that stupid tail stolen from her, replacing them with feverish, neurotic, guilty thoughts of how it might feel to just have it wrap around her head and then just _breathe_ it in…

The last straw comes in the form of her sports bra, forgotten at his apartment, a relic from one of their morning runs that he can’t bring himself to even _touch_  because of how potent it is, and he leaves it out of sight, under a heap of his own clothes in the corner of his bedroom, tries to push it from his mind until she asks about it and he has to bring it back to her the next day, but not before he gives in and _sleeps_  with it, wakes up nearly wearing it, his muzzle buried in its fabric, and he feels sick and crusty and _wrong_  and he decides that enough is enough.

It’s the tail that pushes her over the edge, in the end, when he offers it playfully as a pillow after noticing just how tired she looks, and she almost _does_  fall asleep, right there at her desk, but she makes the mistake of sticking her nose right into his fur and filling her lungs with him, and in her tiredness lets out a moan that’s much too pleasant and much too loud, and she can only stand the look he gives her for a second before she blurts out some bizarre excuse and rushes to the restroom, where she spends the next hour not-quite-sobbing, not-quite-napping, all-too-savoring just how _good_  it made her feel to be that close to him, and that night, at around three-thirty in the morning, she realizes she can’t go on this way.

He’s going off the deep end, and he has to tell her.

She can’t function properly anymore, and she has to tell him.

* * *

She tastes like carrots and he loves it to death.

He tastes like blueberries and she can’t get enough.

When it finally happens, when he pulls her against him and gets that first hint of her, he almost laughs hysterically into her mouth, because of _course_ she tastes like carrots, of course, but instead he just spins her around in his arms, cupping her head in one paw to keep them together, and slams the door to his apartment with his foot.

Her entire body feels like it might start seizing, in the brief second when he’s only holding her and their lips haven’t met yet, but the moment his aroma floods her mouth she _melts_  into him, and all of the fear, all of the tiredness in her body leaves as she’s lifted off the ground, holding onto his shoulders as he brings her inside.

He tastes her lips, and when he takes a millisecond to breathe, he catches her scent again, and finds it no longer maddening to smell on her, no longer something to run from, or make stupid faces over, or try to pull his nose off for, because now that smell, _her_  smell, is his to blend with. He tastes her teeth, and when he touches them with his tongue, he feels their smoothness and _shivers_ , gripping her tighter and wanting never to let her go again, to keep with him forever the feeling of her body pressed against his, of her _mouth_ pressed against his, of their flavors blending so easily and so perfectly that he wants to smack himself for not doing it sooner. He tastes her tongue, and the moment they meet in her mouth, he hears her let out a moan, a sharp, quiet puff of pleasure, and there’s no sound that has ever made him happier or urged him more to continue, stumbling with her still all over him, to his lone, comfy chair.

She samples his lips over and over, luxuriating in just how _yummy_  he is, and her nose twitches and smells the musk that’s surrounding them both completely, breathes it in proudly now, with no reservations, and suddenly she feels more energized than she’s ever felt in her life, the heat that once kept her awake at night now powering her every move as she pulls him on top of her. She savors his fangs and their fruity zest, guiding his head with her paws, tracing them along his jawline, and when they brush against the fur on his neck she quivers, because that spot _has_ been waiting for her her entire life, waiting for her to finally come around and claim him as her full-time body pillow, and she can’t wait to bury her face in his warmth and never have to worry about how to get him near her again. She relishes his blueberry-tinted tongue, wrestling with it hungrily, and it makes him shudder and part for a moment just to breathe out her name, her _real_  name, and she can hear his satisfaction and his relief and his utter _joy_ at having her so close, all in those two short syllables, and when he murmurs it again she can tell he needsher even closer, and she obliges him, wrapping her legs around his stomach and eliminating the gap between their warm, struggling bodies. 

He lets go of her flavor, their mouths separating with a soft, tasty _smack_ , and when his eyes open again all he sees are massive, joyful lavender pools, the ones that make his heart stop and his knees weak and every nerve ending in his body go off whenever she looks at him that way, and he _knows_.

She pulls away from his sweetness, a thin strand of saliva keeping them connected by just the slightest bit, and looks up at him, sees the smile that only he can give her, the one that sets her heart and her foot thumping _hard_ , sees emerald eyes that are half-lidded and yet wider than she’s ever seen them, and she _knows_.

He loves her.

She loves him.

In every sense of the word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Post: http://theunrealhorseman.tumblr.com/post/145216127787/senses-coming-to


	2. Underneath the Ash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA the "melodramatic about-to-die confession fetish" satisfaction drabble

_I’m going to die in here._

The moment the thought enters his head, Nick finds the panic in his chest dying down. His shaking stops. His muscles relax. He can breathe again.

Well. Sort of. There’s still far too much ash in the air, but now his lungs aren’t protesting the same way they were before; he can take it, now. For the moment.

Something large and wooden collapses nearby, sending a fresh flurry of embers and sparks into the air, and he jumps. The warehouse is _alive_ with flames, and it’s getting too difficult to see anything else through all of the smoke. Still, Nick scans the area for any signs of life. When he spots none, he tries to call out, but his throat is coated with soot. Clutching his throat, he coughs and hacks the words out of his throat:

“C– Carrots!”

There’s no answer. The panic starts to press into him again.

“Hopps!”

Still nothing. He twists his head about, chest heaving again, trying to see through the fire.

“ _Judy!_ ”

He lurches forward from the force of his yell, and almost falls back onto his stomach. Air hisses through his teeth, his eyes start to burn even more than they already have been, and he runs his paw down his face, squeezing to relieve the pain because he’s not going to lose it again, that’s not how he’s going to die, he-

“ _Nick!_ ”

It’s weak and in pain, but it’s her voice, and it’s nearby. He looks around in a frenzy, trying to find its source, but there’s still only flame and smoke and rubble.

“Judy?” he rasps, pulling himself forward with his good arm (the other one is worryingly numb, but there’s no time for that, he reminds himself). “Judy, where”—he hacks again, harder this time—”where are you? Keep talking!”

“ _I’m here, Nick! I’m_ –” Her cries are replaced with short, rough coughs that he pinpoints behind a pile of crates that are starting to blacken. Nick _flings_ himself past them as fast as he can, ignoring the pain shooting through his legs and chest with every exertion he makes. He finds her lying on the ground, legs covered by a large beam that isn’t on fire, but very close to it, thanks to the crates she’d been hidden behind. She’s curled up, clutching at her own chest, and she shudders with every powerful cough that leaves her.

_Her lungs are smaller_ , he thinks, and immediately goes to work getting her out from under the debris. She yells as he lifts the beam off of her, but he manages to toss it aside and lie with her, covering her as much as he can with his jacket.

“Here, here, against me. Breathe through the fabric, it’ll help.” He presses her head against his chest, and she wraps her arms around him, wheezing now more than actually breathing. She needs a gas mask, and he wants to beat himself up for not having one, but who would have brought a gas mask to what was supposed to be a gunfight? How could they have known that this wasn’t just the hiding spot of the raccoon in charge of the drug ring they’d been trying to break up for the past month, but also the place where said drugs were made, from several highly flammable chemicals? How could they guess that the drug lord had the foresight to plan an escape route, that he knew they were coming, and that he wasn’t afraid to let his business go down in order to avoid his own arrest?

_If this operation has to burn, then you’re both burning with it._

His last words ring in Nick’s head as he rests his muzzle between Judy’s ears and tries to untwist the expression stuck on his face. He’s pulled her against him as tightly as he can with one arm. Her heartbeat pounds against his stomach.

“Backup’s on the way?” she asks, voiced muffled against his shirt.

“I– I don’t know.”

She looks up at him with wide, fearful eyes. He feels ill.

“You radio’d them, though.” It’s a plea from her, not a statement.

“I got shot before I could finish the request,” he answers, checking to see if the feeling in his right paw has returned and finding that nope, it’s still completely numb, and it’ll probably stay that way for the rest of his life (all fifteen minutes of it). “They might not have heard me.”

“But mine’s…” She reaches down and grasps at her belt, but it’s gone. “No.” She tries to sit up to look for it, but just lifting her head makes her gasp in pain. Nick helps her settle back down on the floor as she groans, pained and angry and desperate. Her nose is twitching, and watching it makes his stomach wrench. He reaches up and cups her cheek, doing his best to give her a smile.

“Hey. It’s okay, Carrots.” It’s not, it’s going to be so much worse than okay, but he has to tell her that, he refuses to tell her anything worse. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“Nick…” She’s shivering. Tears trickle through the ash collecting in her fur and leave trails on her cheeks. Her arms come up to his shoulders, running along them gently. She winces when another part of the warehouse collapses, so he yanks his jacket up over their heads so they can see only each other.

“Listen, when we get outta this, I’m taking you to dinner.” His paw returns to her cheek, wiping away her tears with his thumb. “We’ll go to that snooty, all-organic place you’ve wanted to try forever, my treat.” He swallows thickly, resists hacking again. “A-And after that, I know where we can go to get the best carrot-cake ice cream in the city, and we’ll go to that park you love in the Meadowlands to eat it, the one that doesn’t have any lampposts so you can see all the stars when it’s nighttime, and then– and then I don’t know, we’ll do something else, whatever you want, because– because–”

She just blinks at him. Her breaths are small, barely audible, and definitely not enough to keep her going. Her paws have moved up to his jaw, running down the length of it slowly, in the way she always does to calm him down. He can see she’s beginning to fade, but he doesn’t stop talking, he just pulls her closer to she can hear him better, even if everything he’s saying at this point is hysterical and crazy and what he’d never want her to hear if the danger of losing her wasn’t so real and in front of him right now, because anything is better than lying in silence with her so still.

“–because I want to make you happy, and I want to be with you more. I want to spend every night with you watching those dumb romantic movies you love on your tiny phone in your apartment. I want to meet your family and see the place where you grew up, and I want you to meet my mother and listen to all her stories from back in the day while we sit on her balcony. I want to go dancing with you, and show you all the greatest spots in Zootopia’s nightlife, and do all those stupid, clichéd things you do when you want to show someone you love them… because I do. I love y–”

He stops when her paws slips from his jaw, dropping to the floor, and the pain that surges through him then is _annihilating_. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tries in vain to stop shuddering, to stop hissing through his god _damn_ teeth like this, but he can’t, so he holds her against him instead to make sure she doesn’t see him like this, and waits for his shuddering to die down. By the time it does, her eyelids are half-closed. He stares at her, wetness dripping from the tip of his nose, and runs his thumbs across her cheek again.

_We’re going to die in here_ , he thinks, and all the panic comes back.

“Please.” He doesn’t know if she can hear him, or doesn’t care, or both. “I want you to stay. I _need_ you to stay. You don’t know. I can’t be alone anymore. I–”

Her eyes close completely, and something in him breaks. Bringing her to his chest again, he cradles her, presses his muzzle against the top of her head, and whispers sweet nothings until the smoke takes him as well.

* * *

He doesn’t think he’s awake, and his first thought is:

_The afterlife smells too clean._

But then he realizes he still has eyelids, and that there are lights pounding against them, and he groans.

“Nick?”

“Judy?” he mumbles, even though the voice he just heard is far too old to be her.

“Oh Nick, you’re awake! Oh, my _baby_ …”

He’s being surrounded by something warm and soft, and he tries to move, but he’s exhausted and half-asleep and still not entirely sure he’s not dead, so he just groans again. His eyes open a sliver, just enough to see the graying, tear-streaked muzzle of the fox leaning over him.

“Mom,” he sighs, trying again to sit up. “What–”

She stops him, settles him back against his bed (he’s in a bed, he knows that now, and it’s in a hospital room, he recognizes the clean smell). “Stay still, dear. I’ll get the nurse, tell him you’re awake.”

“What…” He waits for his brain to catch up. “…happened?”

“You were in a fire, dear. You and your partner.”

He feels his heart beating again. “Judy?”

“Yes, you were both in very bad shape when they found you.” She rests a paw on cheek, smiling. “But you’re okay, hon, and so is she. They saved you.” Her eyes flicker downward. “Well, _most_ of you.”

He follows her gaze, looking down at his right paw.

“Oh.” _Now_ he’s awake.

* * *

Clawhauser _had_ , in fact, heard his yelling, as well as the gunshot that broke their connection, and he’d immediately launched into action after trying in vain to contact him again. Half the precinct was on it’s way within minutes, and the moment Fangmire smelled smoke in the direction they were headed, they got the fire department involved. The warehouse was nearly engulfed by the time everyone had arrived, but fortunately Nick’s meddling with the debris that had landed on Judy had cleared enough of a path that the rescue team could get to them before anything major collapsed on them, although they could not, it transpired, save all of their fur. Beginning to end, it had taken half an hour to get them out of there. The only thing that had kept their lungs from being completely smothered by the ash in the air during that time was his police jacket.

This is the report Bogo gives on his single visit to the hospital during Nick’s stay, concluding it with, “It’s a miracle they could get your lungs cleaned out, the way you two looked.” It appears to be a struggle for him, but he eventually admits that he’s relieved to see that they’re okay. It’s the nicest thing he’s ever said to Nick.

The rest of the ZPD visits him over the course of his month-long recovery, and soon he finds himself surrounded by flowers, cards, and several boxes of donuts, which his nurse removes almost immediately for the sake of keeping him healthy ( _A very thin excuse_ , Nick thinks, watching the badger lick his lips as he leaves with the treats in his arms). He doesn’t mind, though. He’s just waiting for them to let him get out of bed. He tried to, a few days after waking from his coma, and found that his legs had decided to turn to jello since he’d last used them. His body was still getting used to working again, they’d said. Fine, he’d replied, he could stand to wait (or sit to wait, rather). It didn’t matter how long it took for him to heal.

As long as Judy was okay.

* * *

She’s more okay than him, it turns out, because she recovers first, and visits him the day before he’s set to be released.

When she pokes her head out from behind the door, he has to dig his claws into his leg to keep from yelling her name and tackling her. He channels this mad energy into his usual laid-back grin instead, and settles against his mountain of pillows as she approaches his bed.

“You’re okay,” she says, her paws wringing together. The only sign on her that tells him she’s been in a fire is a small burn mark on one of her ears. She’s wearing her pink plaid shirt and jeans, the outfit he will forever know in his head as her Museum Clothes, and he wonders if she always wears it whenever something tragic happens to them. She looks beautiful.

“Pfft, like I was gonna let a little smoke get to me!” It feels so _good_ to talk to her again, he can’t help but slide right back into his normal attitude. “I was too busy saving us both with my jacket to get hurt.” He glances at his paw. “For the most part.”

She’s at the edge of his bed now. Her smile makes his chest swell and his cheeks hurt. She brings her paws up and covers her mouth. He sees her eyes are watery, so he does something stupid to try and cheer her up.

“Hey,” he says, lifting his right paw and wiggling his fingers. “High three!”

But now the tears are running down her face and she’s shaking, and he feels like an idiot.

_Of course that was a bad idea, you see each other for the first time in a month after almost dying and your first thought is to show her your brand new stump, what an idiot, you’ve probably traumatized her and she hates you and why is she laughing?_

He stares in wonder at her as she giggles, wiping away the tears. His injured paw is still stuck up in the air. He lowers it, thanking genetics that his fur is already red and she can’t see his blush.

“Oh thank god,” she breathes, and then she _leaps_ onto him.

He has time to get out half of her name before she leans in and kisses him, and then he goes into shock, and all he can see is her gray fur, and all he can taste are blueberries and chocolate pudding, and all he can feel is her lips and her paws and her heart beating like a jackhammer against his chest, and then he shuts his eyes and just  _blends_ with her for a moment.

An eternity passes, and then they separate. She’s still crying, and he wipes her tears away with a thumb. She holds his paw to her cheek as she sniffles and wipes her face with her sleeve.

“You know,” he says, still somewhat paralyzed, “there are tissues right there on my bedside table.”

“Shut up.” She kisses him again, running her paws through his fur from his jaw to his cheeks to the back of his head. He pulls her in closer, holding her tightly with one arm.

“So, uh, I guess you heard what I said in the warehouse, huh?” he asks when he can breathe again.

“You’re taking me to dinner tomorrow,” she answers. “And then we’re getting ice cream, and we’re going to the park, and we’re going to lie there all night and watch the stars together, just like you promised.”

Nick hates the cliché, and he never thought it would happen to him, but his heart _flutters_.

“I don’t remember saying anything about stargazing, Carrots.”

She nestles into the space under his chin, hugging him tightly. He can feel her smile into his fur.

“I know you’ll do it, though,” she teases. “Because you love me.”

Chuckling, he leans his head down and kisses the top of her head. She hums against his neck, and he thinks, _I’m dead, and this is the illusion my mind made up for me in the second before I go so I can cope with it_. Then she kisses his jaw, and he shoves the thought away, bringing her up so he can look her in the eye.

“You got me there, Fluff.” He strokes her cheek, kisses her lips again, thinks, _I’m never going to get tired of that_ , and smiles.

“Stargazing it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Post: http://theunrealhorseman.tumblr.com/post/145361420377/underneath-the-ash


	3. Don't Let it Break Your Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA I stuck them in a Coldplay song because of course I did

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xjazf4s-U8

It takes every fiber in Judy’s being not to kick Nick in the groin when she finds he’s followed her back to her apartment that evening.

“Move.”

“No.” Nick folds his arms and leans further back against the door to her home. “Not until you talk to me.”

Judy groans and rubs her forehead. “Nick, please, it’s been a long day.” She yanks her key ring from her pocket and advances towards him.

“Seems like it’s been more of a long _week_ , Carrots.” He doesn’t move, even as she reaches up and turns they key in its doorknob. “You’ve been acting like this ever since-”

The observation goes unfinished, however, as Judy swings her door open and he finds the surface he’d been supporting himself on no longer there. He falls straight back, landing with a _thump_  and a grunt _._  Judy stomps past him.

“I _don’t_ want to talk about it,” she growls.

“Yeah, I gathered as much,” he retorts, rubbing the feeling back into his elbow.

“Good. Now go.”

“Nuh-uh.” Dusting himself off, he gets back up. “You may not want to, but you _need_  to.” He folds his arms in defiance. “So I’m not leaving until you do.”

Judy glares at him, chucking her phone onto the small table in the corner. They stare each other down in silence for a long moment. Finally, she groans, rolls her eyes, and gives him the slightest nod of her head to invite him inside.

“Shut the door behind you, _please_ ,” she mumbles, injecting as much poison as she can muster into the end of her request.

Satisfied with her answer, Nick nods and obliges her. He follows her to the table as she sits down and rests her paws in her lap, looking not unlike a child prepping themselves for a long and decidedly pointless talking to from their parents. Leaning against the table, he tries to look her in the eye, but she keeps her gaze fixated on her phone. Again, silence pervades the room.

“Well?” she finally snaps after a minute of quiet. “What do you want me to say?”

“Anything. You’re looking pretty steamed, Carrots.” He smirks. “No pun intended.”

If looks could kill, then the glare she gives him would have eviscerated his head in a second. “I _swear_ , Nick, if you only came here to-”

“Okay, okay.” He holds his paws up in surrender. “No more jokes. Promise. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

She focuses back on the phone and mutters, “You _know_  what’s wrong. You were there.”

“I want to hear it from you.”

“Why?”

“Because you need to let it out. You aren’t good at keeping your emotions all bottled up inside of you, it’s hurting you. Besides, the whole ‘never let them see that they get to you’ routine is  _my_ thing.”

Her eyes snap to his, glaring daggers. “You _said_ no more jokes.”

A dry smile creases Nick’s face. “Wasn’t joking, Fluff.”

Her anger towards him stalls, if only for a second. Sighing, she lowers her head until it settles onto the table.

“I messed up a case,” she groans, “and now my perfect case record is ruined.”

“And that’s why you’ve been avoiding any and all interactions at work for the past five days?”

“…No.”

“What did you mess up?”

Judy grimaces. “Please don’t.”

“You have to say it, Judy.”

“No.” Her face twists, and she swipes at her eyes. “I don’t.”

Nick pauses, waiting for her to keep talking. When she doesn’t, he sighs, looks out her apartment window, and starts, “We were investigating some noise complaints in Sahara Square…”

“Stop it, Nick.”

“The neighbors were worried by what they were hearing, especially once it had gone silent once we got there…”

She glares at him, eyes glassy. “Why are you doing this?”

Nick turns from the window to her. Her nose is twitching and her lip is quivering—if it wasn’t the night it was, he would have made a crack about how cute she looks like that. Instead he chooses to reach out and rest a paw on her shoulder. She lets it sit there, keeping her eyes on him, as he continues, “You rushed ahead of me, even though you knew it was dangerous…”

Judy swallows hard and swipes across her face again. Looking down at Nick’s stomach, she begins slowly, “…yeah, I went ahead of you.”

“Why?”

“The same reason I always do,” she drones. “I like being the first one on the scene.”

Nick nods and squeezes her shoulder. “And then?”

“There wasn’t any answer at the door, so I busted it down.” She chews her lower lip, hesitating. “It was a mess inside.”

“What did you do before I got there?” Nick coaxes.

“I just… walked through the apartment. It was dark, so I used my phone’s flashlight. It only took me a few seconds before I spotted…” Trailing off, Judy squeezes her legs with her paws, digging her dull claws deep enough into the flesh of her thighs to make sure she _really_ feels it.

Nick sees she’s beginning to tremble, and lowers himself so he’s at eye level with her. “It’s okay, Judy. Keep going.”

“She was in the bedroom.” She sounds far off, and her eyes glaze over as she continues, “In the corner, halfway under the bed. She was… She was trying to _hide_ –”

Her voice cracks, and as she reaches up to hold her throat, all the floodgates her mind had been building for her in the last five days dissolve. The wave crashes against her, all of the things she’d felt and hated feeling and shoved away into the darkest crevices she could find, and the pain is _there_ , and it’s _real_ , and something deep and broken echoes from her throat before she collapses against the fox in front of her, burying her head into his shoulder and holding him so tightly he winces. 

“That’s it, let it out, Judy-”

“ _I COULDN’T DO IT, NICK_!” Even pressed against his fur, her screams are loud enough to make his ears ring. “ _I WAS TOO LATE!_ ”

“We _both_  were. There was nothing we could do-”

“ _I WATCHED HER DIE!_ ”

“…What?”

She heaves against him, hissing, and he fears she might vomit. But her next words are clear, and quieter than before:

“When I shined my light on her, she… she _twitched_ … and I told her it was okay and I wanted to get her out but– but she couldn’t _move_  anymore–”

Nick’s shoulder is soaked. He stares out the window, running his paw up and down her back, listening, realizing, _understanding_. Understanding what had happened at last.

“…And she was gone by the time I got there,” he finishes.

“I couldn’t… It was…” She sniffles. “She was so _hurt_ , Nick…”

“I know.” He nuzzles her head. “I know.” He peels her off him, holding her out so he can look her in her red, waterlogged eyes. “But you knew this would happen some day. It’s part of the job, dealing with cases like these, and sometimes we see things that we just can’t handle right away-”

“No.”

She has her paws up to her mouth, biting into her claws to keep from sobbing over him. She shakes her head.

“That’s not it, Nick.”

“…Then what is it?”

She shakes her head harder, covering her mouth.

“Judy, _please_. You know you need this.”

Silence. Then:

“It’s me. I can’t do this anymore.”

His jaw unhinges. “ _What?_ ”

“I _failed_ , Nick. I made a horrible mistake.”

“Judy, this wasn’t a _mistake_ -”

“I needed to be better, Nick.”

“Listen-”

“No, _you_ listen!” She wipes her eyes, doing only a little to combat the tears soaking her cheeks. “If I can’t save someone’s life when they need it most, what kind of cop am I? It’s my job to protect and serve, and if I can’t do that, then I’m _nothing_.” She’s shaking hard now, and she hugs herself as words tumble from her lips without any more pause. “I’m just– just a dumb bunny who thought she could make a difference and help people and make the world a better place, when really all I’m good at is running around fast enough to ticket people better than anyone else, and I don’t deserve to be on the force at all, or even to be here in Zootopia, and I should leave now before I mess up any more and hurt someone else, and it’ll be better once I do, I won’t be such a waste of resources and then maybe you or Delgato or Fangmire can handle things like real cops-”

“ _JUDY!_ ”

The yell freezes her, just long enough for him to keep talking:

“Do you even hear yourself right now?” He shakes her shoulders. “You are easily the best cop the ZPD has ever seen, and you _know_  it.”

Shaking her head, she squeezes herself and brings her knees up to her chest, as if to curl up into a ball. “No, no no no no-”

“ _Yes_. And I know it hurts, I can’t imagine how it must have felt to see what you saw, but you can’t just stop because of one case that didn’t end well.”

Judy stares at him in silence, eyes wide open. Then, quietly, she says, “The last time I messed a case up this badly, I didn’t see you for three months.”

Nick’s grip on her shoulders weakens. He opens his mouth, but he has no words to give her in response.

“The last time I messed up a case this badly,” she mumbles, “I almost tore the city apart.”

“Oh,” is all he can say. “Oh.”

She reaches up and mashes her paws into her eyes, smearing tears all over her face. “I can never let that happen again, Nick. I don’t want to… I don’t want to hurt anyone because I’m too dumb or too ignorant… I can’t fail them like that. And I can’t…” She falters and looks away from him. Lowering her head, her forehead presses against her knees, so that he can’t see her face. “I can’t hurt anyone the way I hurt you.”

Nick waits for her to raise her head up again before bringing his paw to her cheek. He brushes away a rolling teardrop, then pulls her into a hug, soothing her as she shudders again in his arms.

“I just– I didn’t think I would ever mess up that badly again,” she whispers against his neck. “And now… Now I don’t know what to think. I– I want-”

But she stops, because her breath is caught in her throat, because she’s been moved suddenly away from him, because he needed her to move so that he could lean down and _kiss her_. It’s only on the forehead, only a small, gentle peck, but she can feel the spot where his lips were and the moisture from his mouth on her fur and the heat from his breath and it makes her  _shiver_. She looks into his smiling face, eyes wide.

“I think you might want to sleep,” he says.

She says nothing (she _can_  say nothing, she realizes).

Nick continues, “You look exhausted. You sound exhausted. And you’ve just unloaded a lot of pent up emotion. You need rest, Carrots.” He stands, patting her shoulder

She musters up the voice to say, “But, but you-”

“Ah ah ah,” he shushes her, then picks her up in his arms. “I’ll say one more thing about all this, and then we’re sleeping.”

“W-We?” she stammers, trying not to feel as flustered from being picked up as she does.

“I am absolutely not leaving you alone tonight, Carrots.” He gives her his classic snarky grin. “You need a shoulder to cry on, I’m your guy. I’m here for you.”

He trudges towards her bed, and Judy asks, “What’s the one thing?”

Nick settles down onto the bed, keeping her in his lap, and says in a matter-of-fact voice, “Judy Hopps, you are not flawless.” He cups her cheek again, and she prays he doesn’t notice how warm it is. “But you _are_  perfect. For every case you might screw up, there’ll be a thousand that you solve with the greatest of ease. I know that for a fact, and I know that you’ll do it because you love what you do, and because you love the people you protect and serve, and so I’m not ever going to believe that you aren’t the greatest cop, or bunny, or mammal in general, that I’ve ever known.”

The warmth in her cheeks makes her smile wider than she means to, even as more tears spill from her eyes. She buries her face in his chest, hugging him, and breathes out her thanks. He lays down with her this way, holding her close, letting her cry into his clothes, and he whispers sweetly to her as she lets herself feel again.

“It’s just too much for me sometimes,” she mumbles, half-asleep and emptied of what feels like every teardrop her body could ever muster. “It’s like I’ve been running a race forever, but no matter how hard I try, I’m always stuck at the starting line.”

He hums, and it vibrates his chest against her head. She smiles into it, giggling softly.

“Well,” Nick says, eyes drifting shut, “if you ever get tired of racing, Fluff, and you still find yourself at the start, I’ll be there to congratulate you anyways.” He hugs her closer, sighing into her neck as he curls up around her. “Just don’t let it break your heart.”

Slipping into dreams with one last sniffle, Judy nods, and whispers, “Not with you around.

“Never.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Post: http://theunrealhorseman.tumblr.com/post/145615369097/dont-let-it-break-your-heart


	4. Interrogation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA Nick and Judy have a very specific MO regarding criminals

The light came on with a _click_ , and Eddie Highspott winced at its harshness. He tried to shade his eyes with a paw, but found them unable to reach that high, stopped by a force that dug into his wrists. Looking down, he saw that he was cuffed to the table he had been seated at only a second ago.

“Wh-Whuh?” he stammered. “How did you-”

“My partner’s got quick feet,” came a voice from beyond the light. “Didn’t want you trying anything funny.”

“Your partner…?” Eddie squinted, trying to adjust his eyes, and slowly the form of the voice’s owner took shape.

The fox sitting across from Eddie had his legs crossed and propped up on the table, so that his feet were practically in Eddie’s face. He stretched his arms and folded his paws behind his head as he leaned back in his seat. Using the heel of his foot to teeter the chair back and forth on its back legs, he gave Eddie a sly grin, his half-lidded green eyes regarding the hyena with humor.

“She’s over there,” he said, nodding to Eddie’s right. “Say ‘Hi,’ Fluff.”

“Fluff” did not say “Hi,” but Eddie was introduced to her very well anyway, as he needed only to turn his head a fraction before realizing that his face was perhaps two inches away from that of a rabbit’s. Like the fox, she was seated with one leg crossed over the other, but instead of being seated at the end of the table, she had chosen to rest on what looked to be a sizable stack of textbooks, positioned just next to the hyena on the table. Hence, the reason she was close enough to startle him when his head turned.

“Jeez, lady!” he cried, flinching back as far as his cuffs would allow. Looking the bunny up and down, however, he felt his confidence return almost immediately. With a smirk, he said, “What, is this a joke?”

“Mm, afraid not, Eddie,” the fox said, sitting up straight. “See, you’re here because Officer Hopps and I need some information on the little vandalism problem that’s been troubling the fine folks living in your neighborhood.” He reached to his right and slid a manila folder in front of Eddie. “I’m gonna show you a few pictures, and all you have to do is answer my questions for me. Then, we’ll let you go. Sound easy?”

“What pictures?” the hyena grunted, not bothering to even question how the fox knew his name. His eyes flickered to the bunny on the book stack every few seconds. Her eyes stayed glued to him, and the glare she wore on her face, despite being that of a bunny, began to unnerve him.

The fox flipped the folder open and spread out several pictures in front of Eddie. He pointed at the first one, a shot of a graffiti-ridden wall. He tapped on the corner of the photo, indicating the image of Eddie himself, leaning against the wall. He asked, “This is you, right?”

Eddie sneered at the fox and replied without looking at the photo, “I don’t know. Picture’s blurry.”

The bunny beside him coughed to get his attention, but before she could do anything else, the fox held up a paw to stop her.

“Easy, Carrots, I’ve got this.”

At this, the hyena snorted. “’Carrots?’” he repeated, letting out a wheezing chortle. “You call her ‘Carrots?’”

“That’s right, Eddie, I do. _Only_  I do.” He gestured to the next photo. “Now, if you could-”

But Eddie wouldn’t let it go. “What kind of a name is ‘Carrots?’”

“The nickname kind of name, the kind that friends like to use for one another, and trust me, bud, you and Carrots here are definitely not friends, so I’d suggest you quit it with the yucks and help me figure out what’s going on in these photos we’ve got here-”

“I ain’t helping you with any pictures, Fox.” Eddie leaned back, giving the fox a slimy grin. “And I sure ain’t helping your little bunny, either.”

The fox stared at him for a moment, looking more bored than annoyed with his uncooperative behavior. Then he sighed and slid the pictures back into the folder.

“Alright, listen,” he said, pulling the folder away from Eddie and towards himself. He leaned forward, paws folded on top of the folder, and continued, “There’s a lot we need to get through, and I don’t have the time to play any games, so I’ll make you a deal. You give me the info that I know you know, and she’ll stop doing it.”

Eddie frowned. “Doing what?”

The fox smiled, and his eyes flickered to the bunny. Without uttering a word, she uncrossed her legs, raised one of them up, and, channeling all of her strength into her leg muscles, brought it down against the back of Eddie’s head, slamming his muzzle into the unyielding metal of the table with a loud crunch.

The hyena yelped as pain exploded in his nose and through the whole of his face. His vision flashed pure white, then fizzled out into splotches of dull colors before the world around him came back into view. He reached up to massage his muzzle and check to see what damage the bunny had done, only to find himself yanked by the collar of his jean jacket so that he and his attacker were face-to-fearful face. Staring into her fiery violet eyes, he felt something deep in his gut that he’d never believed a bunny would have inspired in him: pure, primal terror.

“Listen here, you _punk_ ,” the bunny snarled. “If you think I give even a _single_  shit what you think or feel, then you are _dead fucking wrong_. I see fuckwads like you in here every day, thinking they’ve got their lives all figured out before they’re even done with high school, when really the moment they don’t have any mommies or daddies to go back home to once it’s dark out they’re nothing but a blubbering mess of _tears_ and _failure_. You think you can just come in here and disrespect me and my partner, you’ve got another fucking thing coming!” She yanked him closer, so close that their noses were practically touching. “Now listen here, you little shit, you’re going to hear what my partner has to say. You’re going to shut your fucking mouth and you’re not going to open it unless you’re fucking spoken to, and if I decide, or my partner decides, that what you tell us isn’t fucking good enough, then Jesus Capybara as my witness I will _fucking end you_. _Do you understand me?_ ”

Eddie’s head went on vibrate, and she shoved him back into his seat, snarling, “Good.” She stood there, breathing hard, glaring at him like she might still try to tear him limb from limb. For a second, her breathing and the low hum of the table lamp were the only sounds in the room. Then the fox blurted:

“Judy, holy crap, that was _amazing_!”

The bunny turned, and suddenly the fierce, dominating warrior that had been towering over Eddie was gone, replaced by an adorable, bouncing bunny who squeaked, “Really, Nick?”

“Yeah, really!” The fox had changed as well, his cool demeanor replaced with that of a child who had just met his lifelong hero for the first time.

“Are you sure?” asked Judy, tugging on her ear and looking down at the desk. “Because I kind of thought I did a little too much cursing that time-”

Nick waved his hands and shook his head. “No no, babe, you were _so good_! Even _I_ was a little scared of you!”

Judy blushed, wrung her paws together, and smiled at the fox. “Aww, _Nicky_ …”

Then she bounced over to him and kissed him on the lips.

Eddie was confused.

“What.” He squinted at them, trying to understand what was happening. When they pecked their lips together again, his eyes went wide. “Wait a minute.” He did his best to point an accusatory claw at them, tugging at the chain of his cuffs. “You’re that pred-prey couple that stopped those animals going savage!”

“Hah! Told you he’d get it, Carrots!” Nick laughed. “Looks like _somebunny_  owes me tomorrow morning’s coffee.” He tapped a finger on the bunny’s nose, making her pout at him.

Judy rolled her eyes and folded her arms. “ _Fine_ , you win.” Her pout dissolved into a sugary smirk. “But you know I would have gotten it for you anyway, sweetheart.”

He gave her a dopey smile, resting his head in his paws. “Yeah, I know, hun-bun.”

They touched their noses together, giggling, and Eddie gagged.

“Jee- _zus_ , that’s disgusting!” he snarled, trying to edge away from the affectionate pair.

“Mm, maybe for _you_ ,” Nick hummed, nuzzling Judy’s neck. “I think it’s pretty nice.”

“How can you two even _stomach_ looking at each other?” the hyena cried. “You’re, like, mortal enemies, or whatever!”

“Nick and I? Gosh, _no_ ,” Judy said. “I mean, we _did_  kind of get off on the wrong foot when we met…” She snuggled against Nick, smiling into his neck as he wrapped an arm around her waist. “…but once I knew it was true love, I just couldn’t ever stay mad at him!”

“Aw,” Nick cooed, bending his neck so he could nuzzle her forehead with his muzzle. “Love you too, babe.”

Something in Eddie’s stomach curdled, and he spat, “How are you even allowed to be cops when you do shit like this?”

“Hmph!” Judy put her paws on her hips. “I’ll have you know you’re speaking to the two best officers in the entire ZPD.”

“She’s got ya there, Eddie,” Nick agreed, leaning forward and resting his head atop Judy’s. “And wouldn’t you know it, us being together is the whole reason _why_ we’re the very best. Although, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t entirely because _this_ little fluff-ball keeps me going every day…” He squeezed her hips, making her giggle.

“ _Nicky_ …”

“And hey,” he added, “just because we’re on duty doesn’t mean I can’t take a few seconds out of the day for  _this_.”

He leaned down and started planting butterfly kisses up and down her neck and face. Judy responded by bursting into a fit of giggles, almost causing her to fall onto her back as Nick carried out his onslaught of affection.

“ _Eee_! Nick, _stop it_!” she squealed, trying to push the fox’s muzzle away to no avail. She nearly stumbled into the lamp beside them before Nick pulled her into an embrace and they both cuddled against one another, giggling.

The gooey display made something in the back of Eddie’s brain snap, and he dragged his claws across his face, groaning, “ _Enough_. Just let me go already! Whatever you need, I’ll do it, as long as I can get the hell away from this place!”

Nick’s ear twitched, and he did his best to stifle his laughter. “Sounds like a plan to me, Eddie. We’ll just go ahead and bring in our other officers who are working on this case. They’ve got the rest of the evidence you can help them with.”

Eddie grinned hysterically. “Yes, please! Send someone else in!”

“Alright, alright, don’t get _too_  excited.” Nick stood up, and pulled Judy into his arms, setting her off giggling again. “C’mon, babe, let’s go get McHorn and Delgato in here.” He nuzzled the tips of their noses together, and headed for a large door at their end of the room, carrying her bridal style. She looked back at Eddie over his shoulder and gave a small wave.

“Bye!” she sang, giving a beaming, gushy smile that made him wish she was still threatening to murder him.

Nick opened the door and stepped out into the hallway beyond the interrogation room. The moment the door shut, he let Judy slide out of his arms and back onto the floor. She straightened herself out and dusted off her uniform as Nick turned to look at the rhino and lion sitting a few feet away from them.

“There you go, boys,” he said, slipping a pair of sunglasses out of his shirt pocket and putting them on. “He’s all ready for ya.”

“He really is,” McHorn said, staring at a monitor showing the inside of the interrogation room. “I think you might have driven him insane. He’s laughing alone in there.”

“Geez, and I thought _I_  was good at scaring dumb teenagers,” Delgato murmured, scratching his jaw.

“Sorry it took so long,” Judy interjected. “Nick was being a little greedy with the ‘cuddle time.’” She made air quotes with her fingers and nodded at the fox beside her.

“Don’t act like you don’t love it when I do that,” he replied.

“Take those sunglasses off, we’re inside,” she retorted. “Dumb fox.”

Nick merely chuckled before flipping the sunglasses up onto his forehead.

“How did you know that’d work?” Delgato asked, leaning back in his seat.

“It always does, with these kinds of criminals,” Judy answered. “All it takes is a simple search through records, see whether or not their crimes have any sort of focus on predator-prey relationships, and you go from there.” She pointed to the monitor. “The kid’s graffiti was always anti-interspecific rhetoric, so all we needed was a little predator-prey affection right in his face, and he’s an open book.”

McHorn smirked at the bunny. “Must be the easiest job in the world, showing off your boyfriend to get criminals talking.”

Both Nick and Judy snorted at this.

“Yeah _right_ ,” Nick chuckled.

“We _hate it_  when couples act all mushy in front of others,” Judy explained. “It’s _annoying_.”

“You have no idea how hard it is for me to say the phrase ‘hun-bun’ with a straight face.”

“We wouldn’t be caught  _dead_  actually saying that garbage to each other.”

They both laughed, and so didn’t notice the look and smirks exchanged between McHorn and Delgato.

“ _Sure_ , Hopps,” the latter replied. “Good work, you two.”

“Yeah, we really appreciate it,” McHorn chimed in.

“Hey, no problem, boys,” Nick said, turning to leave. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have a lunch break to enjoy. C’mon, ‘babe.’”

Judy snorted again and teased, “Sure thing, ‘Nicky.’” She turned to McHorn and asked, “If you guys need any more help on this case, just give me a call, okay?”

McHorn rolled his eyes and smiled. “Yeah, yeah, Hopps, we will.” He held out his fist for Judy to bump. “Have a good lunch.”

Her paw met his, and she thanked him. Then she walked off with Nick, down the hall and around a corner at its end.

They headed towards the stairs that lead back up to the main floor of the department. As they walked, Judy considered their little interrogation method, and said, “You know, I still think the cursing’s a little excessive. Not sure why I have to do it that way every time when the important part’s the flirting.”

Nick adjusted his sunglasses on his forehead. “Mm? Oh, you don’t have to _every_ time. I just think you’re hot when you’re angry.”

She shot him a dirty look, but couldn’t help smirking at his admission. “And the cursing?”

“Reminds me of our weekends together.”

Judy’s face turned a violent shade of crimson, and she turned away so he wouldn’t see it, bringing up a paw to scratch at a fake itch on her cheek. A plethora of memories bubbled up in her mind, and she chastised herself for letting him get to her so easily. She cleared her throat and turned back to retort at Nick, but when she looked at him she found him staring at her already, and it made her hesitate. He took the opportunity to flash her his fangs in a smile and wink, and the warmth that flooded her body at that moment disconnected any wires in her brain that allowed her to form a multiple-word sentence. Instead, she laughed, lamely and nervously, and the two officers continued towards the stairs in silence.

“…Wanna quickie in the records office before we go get lunch?” Nick asked.

“Oh my god, _yes_ ,” Judy breathed, and grabbed his paw in hers, yanking him down a hall towards their awaiting secret space.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Post: http://theunrealhorseman.tumblr.com/post/145916360638/interrogation


	5. On Instinct

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA the ending for an early (and much cuter) draft of the movie

Judy glares up at the top of the pit and yells, “What are you gonna do? Kill me?”

Bellwether chuckles as she finishes adjusting the pellet gun in her hooves. “Oh no, of course not!” Taking another step forward, she raises, aims, and sneers, “ _He_ is.”

There’s only a split second for Nick to try and dodge the pellet before it explodes against his neck. With a yelp he falls to the ground, grabbing the spot where the “Night Howler” is now seeping into his skin. He looks to Judy as she stumbles over to him, calling out his name in faux fear. Above them, Bellwether is calling the police over to the Natural History Museum, reporting Officer Hopps’ murder in a panicked voice almost as convincing as Judy’s. He locks eyes with the bunny, and the look they share tells him she’s recording, that everything’s falling into place, and they just need to stall for a minute more-

_(prey)_

He pulls his paw away and stares at the blue goop smeared into his palm, feeling a burning sensation wherever it touches him. His body goes _cold_ when he realizes he smells fertilizer, not blueberries, wafting up from the mushy substance.

_Something is wrong._

He glances up at Bellwether, sees her leering down at him with an all-too-knowing smile, and knows what is about to happen to him.

_(Prey)_

Judy is telling him to fight it, but there is no fear in her voice, not like there should be, not like there _will_  be once it happens, so he flings himself away from her as something black and muckish oozes into the cracks of his consciousness. She scrambles towards him again, and he wants to warn her, to _scream_  at her that she has to run, run, _run_  from him, but he knows his warnings will fall on deaf ears, that she won’t try and fight him when he

_(PREY)_

and his fur is standing on end and he feels like he is being pulled into the cold, even though he swears he’s seeing red, and he can’t _breathe_ like this and Judy’s too close to him, he has to tell her, he has to he has to he has to and a single tear escapes him as he shudders and _pushes_

_(PREYPREYPREYPREYPREYPREY)_

He whimpers her name, one last time, and then he’s _gone_.

“Nick!” Judy cries, pushing herself to tears and shuffling back, getting closer to Bellwether as she can. His eyes snap open and lock onto her, and in them she sees a beast. A wild animal. A predator.

She sees the fox, and only thinks, _Wow, he’s really giving it his all!_

She remembers the act, scoots back further, and yells at him, “Stay back!”

The fox advances, staring her down, and Bellwether laughs again.

“Gosh, think of the headlines!” she taunts, twirling the pellet gun. “’Hero Cop Killed by Savage Fox!’”

Judy yells up at the sheep, “So that’s it? Prey fears predators and you stay in power?”

Bellwether smirks. “Yeah, pretty much.”

Judy shoves herself through the tall grass and up against the wall of the pit, keeping her distance from the approaching fox. It isn’t enough yet, she needs just a little more evidence, a little more time for the police to show up, and then they can-

“ _Mmm_. Excellent blueberries, by the way. That fox of yours really knows his produce!”

The chill that rocks her body forces her to look up at Bellwether. The sheep pops another berry into her mouth, smiling down at her handiwork, and pats the pellet gun beside her.

“You didn’t _really_  think I’d fall for that, did you?” she asks, tilting her head playfully at the bunny. “After all the care I’ve put into this plan, you think I would be _that_  careless?”

Words bubble up in Judy’s throat, but stick there and choke her. Her ears snap to attention when she hears the fox sniffing for her. Enormous emerald orbs appear, shining out at her from the darkness of the grass, and every muscle in her body pulses and _freezes_. A second of silence thunders between the prey and the predator. She finds she’s afraid to breathe.

“N-Nick?”

The fox lunges.

Bellwether smiles as the shriek rings out, echoing through the hallways and exhibits of the museum. She watches the fox smother the rabbit, and moves to put the pellet gun back in its case.

“Bye bye, bunny,” she mutters, flipping the latches of the case.

It takes her a full ten seconds to realize the screams she’s savoring are not of Judy’s immense agony, but of laughter.

“Wh-” Leaving the gun half put away, she looks back over the edge of the pit and sees the fox still atop the bunny–

_Licking_ her.

“Nick!” Judy cries, confused and terrified and giggling all at the same time. “St-Stop it! What are you-” But she can say no more, because he’s pressing against her and his tail is brushing her feet and he’s nipping and nuzzling her neck and face and wasn’t she supposed to be _dead_?

“ _What!?_ ” Bellwether roars, snatching up the gun and double-checking it.

The fox’s ears twitch at the sound of the sheep’s voice, and suddenly he changes again. Spinning around, he spreads himself over her in a protective stance and snarls up at Bellwether, his fur standing on end. Judy can only gape at the scene and try to ignore the tail swishing back and forth across her body, far too close for her to be comfortable with.

Bellwether snaps another pellet into the gun, aims, and fires at the fox. He meets it in midair, pouncing to snap at it, and catches it in his teeth. Blue goo spurts from his mouth, and when he lands he immediately starts hacking and spitting it onto the floor. Judy begins to sidle away from him, ready for the real attack to begin, but if there’s a change the Night Howler instills in him, it’s invisible to her. He finishes coughing up the drug, hisses at the sheep standing above them once more, and retreats back to the bunny’s side, curling around her to form a protective barrier with his body and pressing up against her. He nuzzles her cheek before locking eyes with Bellwether again with an expression on his face that Judy can only interpret as a warning to the ewe:

This is _mine_.

“Why is this happening?” Bellwether shouts, addressing no one in particular. “He’s supposed to turn into a wild _beast_ , not some… some kind of _watchdog_!”

Judy wants to answer that she doesn’t know, that she’s even more confused than Bellwether, and that she would love to understand why this fox is suddenly cuddling with her, but he growls again and his chest vibrates against her whole body and it makes her breath catch in her throat. So she just sits there, head snuggled firmly into the crook of the fox’s neck, and watches Bellwether grow more and more desperate.

Her ears twitch. Outside the museum, she can hear sirens. The fox hears them a few seconds later, and huddles tighter around Judy, a low rumbling resounding through his chest.

Smiling, Judy strokes his neck, watching Bellwether make it two steps before Chief Bogo backs her up to the edge of the pit again.

“It’s alright, Nick,” she murmurs into his ear. “We’re gonna be alright.”

* * *

Somewhere far off, something savage screams at him. There comes a moment of elevation through someplace cold, the sensation of a heavy sludge dripping off of him, and then he’s back.

Nick stares up at the ceiling, trying to remember why he’s there, or where “there” is, exactly. His limbs feel like they don’t belong to him; they’re lead pipes attached to his torso, unwilling to move without the greatest of efforts. He grunts on his first try, and hears a shuffle to his right.

“You’re awake!”

Like a key turning in a lock, the sound of her voice opens him to the surrounding world, and he realizes he’s in a hospital room. Blinking, he turns in his bed, looking across the room to see Judy sitting in the visitor’s chair a few feet away, beaming at him. Tears of relief well in her eyes, and she sets the book in her paws on the table beside her. When she stands, Nick notices the brace around her knee.

_What are you gonna do? Kill me?_

_Oh no, of course not! He is!_

_(PREYPREYPREYPREYPREYPREY)_

“ _Judy_ ,” he chokes, memories crushing him under their weight. He makes a lame attempt to run to her, still delirious and withdrawn from reality, and tumbles over the side of the bed. But she catches him, already at his side, and holds him steady as he wraps his arms around her and _shatters_.

“I thought– The Night Howler– When she got me–” Words won’t come, not the way he needs them to, and they’re punctuated by heaves that he hates himself for being unable to control. His paws run over every inch of her they can, making sure the fabric and fur and skin he feels is real and warm and _hers_.

“I’m fine, Nick,” she assures him, settling him further back onto his bed. “It’s okay.”

“ _Did I hurt you?_ ” The smallness of his voice and the fear he packs into it makes him feel like a child, but he can’t make the sentence come out any other way. He pulls back from her, cupping her cheek, so that he can scan her face.

“No.” She leans into his paw, reaching up and rubbing it with her own. “You would never.” Seeing his gaze flicker to the brace, she smiles and says, “That’s just on while my leg heals. Remember, I got hurt before we fell into the pit?”

“But– But I went _savage_ –” Feeling the word on his lips makes his stomach flip, and he swallows hard. “I– I _wanted_ to–”

He sees her in his mind, lying in the pit, fang marks fresh on her pretty, broken neck, and he has to cover his mouth and bite into his palm to keep from vomiting.

Sensing his panic, she hushes and strokes him, running gentle paws down from his cheeks to his neck. She brings him close, close enough that they share breaths, and locks eyes with him.

“You didn’t, Nick,” she whispers, still stroking his neck. “You protected me. You _saved_ me.”

“I– What?” He pulls back, frowning. “How?”

“That’s what I was wondering, too.” With a grin, she nods back at the book on the table. “So I did some research.”

He squints over at the title: _Foxes: A Psychology_.

“At first I thought the Night Howler just didn’t work on you, but then you didn’t stop… um…” Her face flushes, and he’s about to ask when she coughs and continues, “ _So_ , I figured it had something to do with instinct, and sure enough, when I looked it up…” She trails off, grinning up at him.

Still very much in need of answers, he asks “What? What did you find?”

Rocking back and forth on her heels, Judy bites her lip, her cheeks growing hot. Twisting her paws behind her back, she mutters, “Well, it took a while to read through everything, and I needed to keep a dictionary at my side the whole time, but the gist of it is… There’s this instinct foxes have, where they protect what’s important to them. And I guess, once you got close enough… you _recognized_ me.”

He’s partly wondering why she’s so sheepish about telling him this, mostly thanking any and every god there may be that he didn’t hurt her. Releasing a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, Nick slumps into his pillow, wiping his face and breathing normally for the first time since waking.

“I protected you,” he breathes, chuckling. “You weren’t food, you were just–”

_(mine)_

His ears twitch, hearing something far off that he can’t exactly place. He stares at the buzzing fluorescent lights on the ceiling, mouth open only a sliver, thinking of something to say.

“I didn’t realize,” Judy goes on, swaying over to his bedside, her eyes scanning the ground for nothing in particular, “that I was so important to you.” She looks back up at him, her look questioning him, wondering if she’s right.

He wants to tell her that god, _yes_ , of course she’s important to him, how could she _not_ be when she’s the only person he’s met in twenty years who’s ever cared for him so much, the only person who’s ever fought for him, the only person who’s ever made him _believe_ he could be more than what he is. He wants to tell her she’s the most important thing in his _life_ , that he’s more than happy to keep on protecting her as long as he possibly can, that he wants to protect and hold her so badly he’s _sick_ with it. He wants to tell her that he _needs_  her, that he’s never needed anyone the way he needs her now, and that he thinks that maybe, by god, could it be that he, Nicholas Piberius Wilde, a fox, was actually possibly _probably_  falling in love with a _bunny_ , just because she makes him feel happy to be alive for once, and hey, maybe he knows that she feels that way too, and they’re both just waiting for the other to go ahead and say it so they can–

But he’s exhausted, and weak, and still fuzzy in the head, so instead he says, “ _Are_ you that important to me?”

In the pause that follows, doubt clouds her eyes and her smile falters. Then he pats the empty patch of bed beside him and gives her a cheeky grin.

“Yes. Yes you are.”

Her smile returns in all it’s beatific glory, and she leaps up to sit next to him, punching him gently.

“Dumb fox.”

_Your dumb fox_ , he thinks, rubbing his arm, and laughs with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Post: http://theunrealhorseman.tumblr.com/post/146113086387/on-instinct


	6. The Drumroll

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA How I Met Your Mother already did it

_“You know, they say it’s downhill after the first kiss.”  
_

_“I’m pretty sure that only counts when you’re kissing a mammal.”_

“Oh, _come on_!”

With a groan, Nick hit the pause button on the remote in him paw, set it down next to him, and turned to face the bunny sitting beside him on the couch. “What is it _this_  time, Carrots?”

Judy looked at him with indignation and retorted, “What, like you don’t have a problem with it, too.”

“Not enough to yell at the screen every five seconds.”

“You love to complain about movies!” Judy accused.

Holding a finger up to silence her, he corrected, “ _Riffing_ on a movie is not the same as ‘complaining.’ It’s funny.” He directed the finger at her forehead. “What _you_ are doing, darling, is complaining, and that is decidedly _not_  funny.” He smirked. “Cute, though.”

Judy pouted at him. It was always like this whenever she came over to his place for Movie Night (which was most nights, really): no matter what it was they rented from the video store or found on Nutflix, however acclaimed or crappy, they’d spend the entire movie jeering at anything they could, in a constant contest to see who could out-joke the other. Most movies, however, Judy did not find as infuriatingly _bad_ as tonight’s choice, which she blamed Nick for entirely.

“That is _not_  how you react to an entire city being destroyed!” she insisted, gesturing wildly at the small TV in front of them. “What kind of crazy person watches a horrific national disaster and then immediately make out with someone in the middle of ground zero?”

“It’s a superhero movie, Fluff,” the fox answered, “that’s what happens. Good guy saves the city, then he gets the girl.”

Judy made several squeaks of outrage before retaliating, “ _What_  ‘good guy?’ Supermouse didn’t save the city, he helped destroy it! Not to mention that poor small town from earlier!”

Nick shrugged and “Hey, they’re just being realistic. You think they wouldn’t cause some collateral damage with all their fighting?”

“Well, yeah, but they could at least _acknowledge_ it! I mean, that’s like, what, a million mammals caught in this massive wave of destruction, and all anyone says is,”—and here she brought her paws to her cheeks in a pose of false admiration—”‘Oh thank god he saved us!’ or ‘Mm, you know it’s all downhill from the first kiss!’”

Nick covered his muzzle with a paw to keep from snorting at Judy’s poor imitations of the characters and said, “I thought you were rooting for Lois Mane and Supermouse to get together, even though it makes no sense that a mouse could ever get with a pony.”

A light blush darkened Judy’s cheeks. “H-Hey, they make a really good couple! Species shouldn’t matter if they really love each other!” She muttered something else he couldn’t hear under her breath, and he chuckled.

“Didn’t you say last time we watched a rom-com that you were tired of Hollywood forcing romances down the public’s throat all the time, and that we need more platonic couples in movies?” he added, propping his head up with his paw.

Beet red, she folded her arms and grumbled, “It’s different when they have actual chemistry.”

Nick snorted and pointed at the paused pair on screen. “You call _that_  chemistry?”

“Not anymore! Not when they’re saying stupid stuff like this!” She turned back to face the screen, scoffed, and added, “Who even actually believes that junk about first kisses, anyway?”

Nick shrugged again and leaned back into the couch. “Eh, made sense to me.”

“What?” Judy squeaked, ears perking up. “You actually  _agree_  with them?”

“Sure. I’ve had a few relationships where it never got better after the first kiss. Maybe not as grim and lifeless as our poor lovers in Zootropolis here, but still.”

She listened intently, nodding and hoping that he’d continue. Nick’s past was a topic she was always eager to discuss, and any time Nick willingly brought it up she sprung at the opportunity to learn more. The fact that he was talking not just about his past, but his past _relationships_ , made for a particularly appetizing talk.

When he had stopped speaking for more than a moment, she coaxed, “So, how many times has it been that bad?”

He chuckled. “I wouldn’t ever call it _bad_ , just annoying. It only happened two or three times to me, but it was always the same. We’d have that one first night of perfection, and then, somehow, everything always got worse.” Smirking, he added, “Of course, most of the time, that first night of perfection wasn’t just about kisses.” He shot her a wink, snickering at the blush that flooded her cheeks.

“Oh,” she realized. “ _Oh_.” She inched forward, almost imperceptibly, and continued, “So, you think once you share a kiss with someone…”

“…they’ll finish with you as quickly as they can,” Nick finished. “Once that first kiss gets you on the hook, you’re just luggage, dragged along until you get to the place where all luggage gets tossed into a corner: the bedroom.” He accented this point by raising an eyebrow at her.

“That isn’t true!” Judy insisted. “I’ve had boyfriends before that didn’t get worse after I kissed them!”

Hearing this made Nick blanch. Shooting her an incredulous look, he questioned, “You’ve had _multiple_ boyfriends?”

“Well yeah– Wait, _why is that so surprising to you_?”

“Honestly, Carrots, up until now I thought you’d never been kissed.”

Judy gaped at him, appalled at his accusation. “What on Earth would make you think I’d never been kissed?”

“Gee,” he replied, slapping a paw to his cheek in fake bewilderment, “maybe it has something to do with the fact that all you ever do is work.”

“I’ll have you know I had three boyfriends while I was in high school,” the bunny huffed. “I dealt with that sort of drama just like everybody else does.”

“Ha! Of course _you_  would say it like it was some kind of assignment back then!” Nick laughed. “I bet you thought it was some kind of requirement that a girl has to date while she’s in high school!”

“Oh, _whatever_. None of my relationships were ever always downhill after the first kiss.” She crossed her arms, tilted her head, and gave him a cocky smile. “So I guess there must be something wrong with how you treat vixens, slick.”

“I’ll have you know I made a _great_  boyfriend,” he retorted. “Every girl this side of Zootopia wants a taste of the Wilde side. It’s just that once they get it…” He slashed a paw across his neck. “Gone.”

Judy’s amused expression wilted as she saw the sassy glimmer in Nick’s eyes fade. Recognizing how he really felt about the topic, she reached over and squeezed his arm.

“Well, I’m sorry it’s been all downhill for you so much, Nick,” she comforted. “You’ll find someone who’ll pull you back up soon, I just know it.”

He glanced at her paw and smiled, giving Judy a warm feeling that made her want to hug him. Looking back up at her, he patted his own paw on top of hers and said, “Thanks, Carrots.”

They stayed that way for a second too long, connected just enough for Judy to feel a pulse in her cheeks and a hard thump in her chest that gave her goosebumps. Something in Nick’s expression that she couldn’t put a name to changed and he shifted, sliding his paw off of hers. She took the opportunity to pull her paw off him as well, and the two settled back into their seats, closer to each other on the couch than either of them realized.

“First kisses are overrated, anyway,” Judy coughed, breaking the silence to their collective relief.

“I thought you said you never had a downhill relationship?” Nick questioned.

“I didn’t,” she replied. “I just… never thought any of my first kisses were amazing.”

“Hey, finally, something we can agree on,” Nick said.

“I mean, everyone always acts like they’re some kind of magical, important moments in your life,” she went on, staring at her feet, “when really no one even knows what they’re doing when they do it.”

“Aw, is somebody speaking from experience here?” Nick teased.

“Yes,” Judy answered, ears drooping down the back of her head. She hugged her arms around herself and glared at the TV screen, mumbling, “It was horrible.” Folding further into herself, she added, “And heartbreaking.”

“Hey, first kisses usually are.” He leaned into the couch and threw his arms over the back of it. “Nobody ever realizes that kissing is an art form, not just some incredible thing everyone automatically knows how to do.”

She grunted in agreement and mumbled, “The best part is the build-up. That’s what makes it worth it.”

Nick nodded and sighed in faux whimsy. “Ah, those few wonderful seconds before all your dreams are shattered by an idiot who doesn’t realize when to use their tongue.”

Judy snorted, making him smile. “It’s true, though,” she giggled. “It’s always perfect, right up until the actual kiss.” She paused, eyes staring down her toes, before adding, “I bet you if we just left it like that, whenever we went out with someone, it’d be so much better.”

He clicked his tongue and pointed at her again. “There’s where you’re wrong, Fluff. You’d never even get a second date if you try and pull that.”

“Just because it’s not normal, doesn’t mean it’s not better.”

“What, teasing someone like that and then just leaving them with nothing? Sure, that sounds _so_ romantic.”

“I bet you it is!”

“And I’m _telling_ you it isn’t, Carrots.” He leaned towards her, folding his arms and smirking. “You don’t stop at the drumroll, even if whatever it’s for turns out to be lame.”

Judy glared at the sly fox, arms crossed over her knees, and shifted so that her whole body was facing him. Sticking her face right up in his, she squinted and said, “I’ll prove it.”

The time it took for the smirk to slip from Nick’s face could have broken records. “Come again?”

“We’ll try it ourselves, if you’re so skeptical. Right here, right now.”

Nick gave a nervous chuckle and drew away from her. “Uh, Carrots, look, I realize we’re very close friends, and there’s a special place in my heart for you and no one else-”

“Exactly. You like me, and I like you. So, let’s say we’re on a date–”

“Okay, _woah_ –”

“– _shush_ , and we want to say goodbye, but don’t want to end the night on a bad note. So…”

His blood ran cold when she brought a paw up to his neck. Judy didn’t seem to notice the instant tightening of his muscles at her touch, nor the look of intense and immediate panic on his reddening face. His mouth opened to complain and ask how she seemed to be so okay with this, but he found he had no voice to speak with.

“We stop at the drumroll,” she stated in a voice analytical and calm, and suddenly it clicked in his head: this was just another assignment to her, like the prerequisite boyfriends she’d had in high school. There was no ulterior motive to putting him in this position. All she wanted was to prove a point, and the moment he accepted this as the truth in his mind, the tightness in his muscles and the chill in his blood vanished. His cocky grin returned, and he chuckled.

“Alright, Carrots,” he smirked, slipping into character. “If you _really_ want me that badly.”

She rolled her eyes, smiling back at him. “Oh _please_.”

“ _Shh_ …” He put a finger to her lips. “Just shut up and don’t kiss me.”

She giggled as he drew his paw from her lips to her cheek, cupping it in his palm and slipping his fingers around to the back of her head. She tugged gently on his neck, inviting him forward. Tugging back in response, the two leaned towards each other, shutting their eyes slowly, the way couples always did in the movies they watched. Nick tilted his head, already congratulating himself on being right in his head. There was nothing about this that was magical, and besides, it was a flawed plan from the start—they already knew they weren’t going to kiss, so what anticipation could possibly have any effect on–

And then he pulled her close enough to feel her breath against his lips and every atom of his being _sizzled_. Muscles locked, fur stood on end, and his tail shot up and went rigid as he hovered, eyes shut, with Judy right at his lips, and felt himself fall of the edge of the world and into a pool of sensations he couldn’t put names to. Every microinch her paw rubbed against the fur on his neck sent tidal waves of bliss crashing down upon him. His ears flattened against his head as he took in a sharp breath, breathing in air that had her scent in it. Awash in a cocktail of her aromas, his mind brought him a step further, conjuring up fantastical visions of what she might _taste_  like, and it took every remaining shred of his conscience that had not been obliterated in the wake of his closeness to her not to succumb to such delusions, even though he knew it would be so easy, _so easy_  to just lean in that extra inch, pull her a little closer, and _kiss_ her…

Time became unstuck, finally, when Judy pulled back. Nick gave a short sigh of relief, even as a petty voice in the back of his head screamed in wrathful disappointment. Opening his eyes, he found Judy staring back at him, her paw drawn away from him but still hovering in the air between them. Her mouth was ajar; he noticed a smudge of moisture glistening on her lower lip and fought the petty voice’s pleas to wipe it away with his own. Looking into her violet eyes, he saw how wide they were, realized how close they still were to each other, and drew back from her. She stayed frozen in place, but kept her eyes fixed on him, her expression also one of realization. Strangely, her face was not red with any kind of blush. Her paw lowered slowly, until it rested against her leg, and she closed her mouth and swallowed, loud enough to make his ear twitch in surprise.

Then, finally, just as it was beginning to tear Nick’s sanity to pieces, Judy broke the silence between them:

“…There,” she lilted, her voice tiny and far away, “aren’t you glad I didn’t ruin the moment and go any further?”

He blinked a few times, coming back to reality, and loosened his body up. He turned so that he could lean back on the couch again, and muttered, “Yep. You win,” before setting his paws (one of which, he realized with a jolt, he’d had to yank out of the couch cushion its claws had punctured) in his lap and staring at the paused TV screen. “Can we finish the movie now?” he asked, making an effort not to let his voice crack when he spoke.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Judy nod. She shuffled in her seat, faced the screen, and reached over to hit the play button on the remote (he made a concentrated effort to ignore how close she came to touching him while doing so). The rest of the movie went by without any commentary from the two, who both did their best to make the TV the only thing in the room worth looking at. Judy tried to show off her rapt attention to the screen by blinking as little as possible while she watched, as though that might make the drama playing out before her that much more riveting. Nick stared through the television and off into space, as a record in his mind played on repeat, yelling at him, _Of course this happens, what did you think would happen, you can’t just do something like that with someone you like, how stupid do you have to be to think this wouldn’t happen?_

The moment the credits popped up on screen, Judy leapt off the couch and stretched, yawning in a way that sounded more like screaming.

“ _Well_ , that was fun, but I gotta be up early tomorrow, you know, busy busy busy, better get home!” She headed for the door, a horrific, fake smile plastered on her face.

“Uh-huh,” Nick whimpered, still giving the TV a thousand-yard stare. He snapped out of it when Judy passed him, and with a start got up and followed her to the door. He opened it for her and stared straight ahead at his bookshelf as she walked out into the hall. “See you tomorrow, I guess.”

Judy stopped in the doorway and spun around, opening her mouth to speak. She had her paw raised, a finger held up as though to make a point about something. Instead, she stared at him, bit her lip, and pointed towards the stairs leading down and out of his apartment building. Then she slunk away, her eyes still as wide as they’d been when they’d separated.

Nick shut the door and glared into the wood grain in front of him. His brain caught up with the rest of him, and he shut his eyes and groaned. He thumped his skull against the door as a thought occurred to him:

_Oh god, this is how it’s gonna be from now on. That was the stupidest thing we ever could have done, and now we’re not gonna be able to even look at each other, and Jesus Capybara she’s gonna drive me out of my mind-_

Someone knocked on the door, and even though he knew exactly who it was, he debated just going to bed without answering it. But he shook the thought from his head, reached out to grasp the doorknob, and paused to pull himself together. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door, and was greeted with a faceful of rabbit.

Without warning, Judy leapt up, grabbed his cheeks with both paws, and crushed her mouth against his. Instinctively, his paws grabbed her back and thighs so that he could hold her up to him. It took only a second of confusion, a second of panicked mental screams that told him everything was going crazy, that it was the end of the world and nothing made sense anymore, before he understood what was happening, pulled her into a tight, thankful embrace, and dove headfirst into her soft, heavenly affection. An eternity passed, full of tastes and smacks and nips and shivers, before Judy yanked herself away from him, chest heaving.

“I don’t think we’d go downhill, if we tried,” she gasped, rubbing his cheeks.

“Oh _hell_  no,” Nick mumbled, running his paw down the length of her ears, before pulling her in again.

They met each other eagerly, and he spun around to bring her back over to the couch. As he turned, he reached out with a leg and slammed the door shut with his foot. The thud it made as it closed reminded him, funnily enough, of a drum.

_Of course it does_ , he thought, and then he tumbled with her onto the couch and his thoughts ran together, and stayed like that until morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Post: http://theunrealhorseman.tumblr.com/post/146412572191/the-drumroll


	7. Cops and Robbers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA Judy is thirsty and Nick is a smooth criminal (AU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr Prompt Request: “fight me, you attractive stranger.”

_“STOP! THIEF!”_

The hooded figure flies down the alley. Judy goes charging after it, ripping the meter maid vest from her body and flinging it into the air behind her. Adrenaline surges through her veins as she pursues the figure. In the back of her mind, she knows this is going against her assigned duty, but the prospect of catching a criminal, of really, _finally_ achieving her lifelong dream of making the world a better place, is far too tempting to keep her stuck behind the wheel of the pathetic little golf cart she’d been relegated to.

_This is my chance_ , she thinks, grinning ear to ear. _I can show them just how good of a cop I really am._

The hooligan in green makes a sharp turn down an alley to try and get out of sight, but Judy is already gaining, and in no time makes short work of the gap between them. Springing forward, she tackles the figure to the ground before he can make it to the fire escape leading up and out of the dead end she’s chased him into. They struggle together for a moment before Judy pins the mammal to the ground and shoves her badge in front of his face.

“ZPD! You are under arre-” She gets only this far in her announcement before her voice dies in her throat, because the culprit’s hood has slipped off in their struggle and she’s staggered by just how _green_  his eyes are. 

And _oh_ , is he a _he_. A lean, chiseled, smooth-furred _male_ , with a jaw sculpted by the gods themselves and a scent on him that makes her want to _squeal_. He is also a _fox_ , which is perhaps the main reason she is so baffled by her inability to function properly at the sight of his face.

Her hesitation provides him an opportunity, unfortunately, and she finds herself flung off of him and onto the dirty concrete.

“Hey!” she yells, scrambling to get up as the fox launches himself towards the end of the alley. His tail swishes in front of her face, and with a smile she grabs it in both paws and yanks. The fox goes flying back with a yelp, collapsing in a heap in front of her. It takes him a moment to collect himself before he turns to swipe his tail back, only to find, much to his confusion, that she’s _nuzzling_ it.

“What the–”

The fox tugs on his tail, more to snap Judy out of it than to get away, but she pays him no mind—she’s far too _lost_ to worry about anything else but the warm, cushy embrace of the appendage in her paws. Fur slips between her fingers as she strokes it, trying to memorize its texture. Her breaths shudder from her chest, all too reluctant to be released and all too eager to breathe him in again. Every follicle of hair that brushes her face is like heaven, and she wants to _squeeze_ it into herself, to wrap it around her until it’s like a second skin, so that she might always feel as snug and electrified and _euphoric_ as it’s making her feel now–

“Um, excuse me?”

Her fantasies collapse around her, a sound not unlike a shattering mirror echoing in her mind, and she peeks her head sheepishly around the bushy limb in her arms to look at the fox. The expression on his face makes her cheeks flash a hot scarlet; the realization of what she must have looked like a moment ago turns them a boiling maroon. She loosens her grip on the tail, the reason she’d grabbed it in the first place momentarily forgotten in the haze of gooey emotions now scorching her insides.

Still dumbfounded by the bunny’s behavior, the fox doesn’t draw his tail away from her. He squints at her as she silently avoids eye contact with him, trying to keep her gaze fixated on a stain on the concrete next to his paw. “Trying” being the operative word, he notes, as every other moment, her eyes flicker to his backside, stuck pointing right at her face thanks to her earlier tail-pulling shenanigans. He gives her a once over, examining the blue and gray of her police uniform, and then, much to her surprise, smirks.

“Is this some kind of joke?” he asks.

“Wh–” Judy clears her head with a shake, and squeezes his tail once more, now with an iron grip meant to keep him from escaping. She ignores his yelp of pain and blurts, “No, no! You’re–” With a groan of frustration, she powers through her stammering and announces in as calm a voice as she can manage, “You are under arrest.”

He snorts. “You’re not a cop.”

Her brow furrows in bewilderment. “Yes I am!”

“Bunnies aren’t cops,” he states. Glancing at her uniform, he adds, “Cute costume, though.”

“This isn’t a costume,” Judy growls, “and _don’t_ call me cute.”

Hey, it’s a compliment!” the fox insists, propping his head against a paw.

“Not coming from _you_.”

“You sure about that?” he replies, wiggling his eyebrows at her. “Because the way you were feeling me up just now, I’d say otherwise.” The tip of his tail tickles her nose, and he winks at her.

Judy grinds her teeth in an attempt to force away the blush plaguing her cheeks. Pulling his tail again, to wipe the smirk from his face, she says, “I was _not_ feeling you up.”

The fox goes on, ignoring her: “You know, I’d always heard that rabbits were constantly in heat, but I didn’t realize it was so bad they even want to screw their natural predators sometimes.”

“ _Okay_ , that’s enough!” Judy adjusts her grip and reaches down to her belt. “You’re coming with–” But she stops, because the spot where her handcuffs should be is empty. Her face twists when she remembers her original assignment of meter maid duty, a job which, she had been told, would not require her to bring along all of the necessary tools of a regular beat cop.

“Aw, it doesn’t even come with handcuffs,” the fox sneers. “Guess the folks down at the Halloween store didn’t want you accidentally getting yourself stuck to a lamppost, huh?”

“I am a real cop,” she asserts, “and I’m taking you down to the ZPD, _now_. So get up.” She gives his tail one last tug before letting go of it.

He obliges her, but says as he stands, “What I want to know is, who would even think it’s a smart idea to let a bunny be a cop? They just get scared all the time, you’d lose ‘em in a day, tops.”

“I’m not scared of you,” Judy mumbles, watching him stretch his limbs and trying not to think of how flexible he could be.

“Oh no?” He turns to her and smiles, giving her a nice look at his pearly white fangs. Stalking towards her, he taunts “You’re not worried that I might attack you right now? That I might _hunt_ you? That I might…” He lunges forward, baring his teeth and claws at her. “ _…eat you?_ ”

On instinct, Judy stumbles back and reaches for the item she _knows_ she’s kept on her belt, for just a situation as this one: her fox repellent spray. Her fingers don’t even unclasp it’s holster, however, before a puff of air from the fox’s mouth travels the foot-long gap between their faces and holds her still. The smell of blueberries invades her senses, and she finds herself wondering whether or not he _tastes_ that way as well. Gaping at his fangs, she realizes she’s never actually been so close to them, and she marvels at just how _dangerous_ they look. She pictures them pressing against her, against her cheeks and her lips and her neck, pictures him _biting_ her, and feels some distant part of her brain sizzle. She imagines his claws, looking so _sharp_ hovering inches from her now, digging into her, running through her fur and dragging oh so _slowly_ across her skin, and the rest of her mind catches fire. She dreams of the implications of his teasing, thoughts of being _hunted_ by him, of his haunting, amazing verdant eyes shining out at her mere moments before being _eaten_ , and in the flurry of desires this sets off she feels herself _melt_.

This entire frenzied cocktail of emotions thunders down on Judy in the single second the fox holds his threatening pose. He straightens up almost immediately, leaving the bunny staring off into space. He spots the maroon glow through her gray fur, notices the erratic twitching of her nose, and smirks again.

“ _Wow_. You must have it _bad_ , bunny.” He chuckles, and walks past her. “I’ll just excuse myself, let you think things over–”

_“No!”_

Judy’s paw shoots out and grabs his wrist, twisting it in an effort to stop him, but he shrugs her off easily and continues strolling back the way they’d run in. Falling all over herself to follow him, she tears the repellent from her belt and holds it out with both hands, commanding, “ _Freeze!_ Or I’ll spray!”

The fox pauses, and she thinks she’s got him under control now, finally. But when he turns to face her, she sees he still has that stupid, dumb,  _sexy_ smile of his plastered on.

“Would you really?” he asks in a cloying voice. “But you might mess up my perfect, handsome face.” He bats his eyes at her in a faux pout.

_Damn, he’s right, I can’t do that,_ a thirsty voice in the back of her head cries out, and she snarls to keep it at bay.

“The only way I’m letting you leave,” she declares, “is if you fight me, you…”

“…attractive stranger?” he finishes, tilting his head playfully. He laughs at the exasperated squeaks that come out of her in response and says, “I’ll have to decline, Officer Cottontail. As much as you must think otherwise, I’d really hate to scratch up that cute little outfit of yours, so–”

The rest of his taunt is knocked out of him, along with all the air in his lungs. Judy’s tackle brings them both crashing to the ground, and the briefest of struggles leaves her on top of him. Momentum brings their bodies mashing together, and when they settle, she is straddling his chest, his arms are trapped under her thighs, and she has his paws held down with her own. Their foreheads smack together, and they draw back to look each other in the eye. Immediately, Judy’s look of determination evaporates, replaced with one of horrified meekness, and she tries to look anywhere that isn’t _him_ , but his face fill her vision, and the only thing she can look at besides his eyes are his _lips,_ and she feels the same part of her brain that told her not to spray him turn to putty.

For just a second, to her absolute amazement, the fox’s face is twisted in the same way, betraying a timidity that makes her putty-brain go into overdrive analyzing every wrinkle in his brow and smile and unbearably attractive squint to find some sort sign of weakness in him. Then it shuts down, blocked by the same smirk as before, and she holds back her urge to scream in frustration.

“Why, Officer”—his eyes flicker to her name tag—“Hopps. How _forward_ of you.”

She’s about to lose her nerve and just knock him out, but in a moment of clarity she realizes she has him stuck under her. With the revelation that she’s in charge of the situation comes a newfound calm, and she straightens herself up, keeping as far away from his muzzle as she can without relinquishing any grip on his paws.

“You have one more chance,” she tells him, face stern. “If you don’t comply and come with me peacefully, I will have to use excessive force. You have been warned. Do you understand?”

Much to her surprise, he replies, “Sure thing, Carrots. I understand.” But the smirk is still there, and it looks wrong to hear such compliant words come from it. “Anything else can I do for you, while you’ve still got me?”

She catches his meaning and blushes violently once more. Leaning in again so that he can see only her eyes and not her cheeks, she growls, “Listen, slick-”

“Actually, it’s Nick,” he interrupts, not flinching back an inch at her threatening tone. “Figured you ought to know at least that, before you have your way with me.”

“ _Enough_ with the jokes,” she snaps, crushing his paws in hers. “I am _not_ attracted to you.”

“Right,” he humors, nodding. “That would be crazy, anyway. I mean, what _would_ the public think?”

“Nothing, because there’s nothing to think _about_.”

His grin stretches, to the degree that she begins to find it just as frightening as it is appetizing, and he mutters, “Couldn’t agree more.” Then, without warning, he reaches his head up and kisses her full on the lips.

Several things happen at once.

The taste of blueberries floods her mouth, just the way she imagined yet so much _more_ , and she feels the softness, the sweetness, the _moisture_ on his lips, and knows that nothing she ever tastes will match his flavor.

Her paws _squeeze_ his, then let go and shoot up to his muzzle, ready to pry him off her, but she feels the his jawline and the fuzz growing from it and loses the ability to flex her arm muscles in any meaningful way.

Her legs jerk, thighs spreading further apart, loosening their grip on his arms, and one of her feet starts to stamp uncontrollably, bouncing her up and down against him in a way that lets his arms free, inch by inch, every few seconds.

She loses any sense of reality, her mind a flood of pure synaptic pleasure, her body floating off the surface of the planet, and she freezes in place in the hopes that somehow, this will freeze time as well, leaving them stuck this way forever, simply existing against each other, a never-ending sampling of essences that would fully, utterly _satisfy_ her.

But he pulls his mouth away, and she can no longer move, not even to stop him, and can only stare in absolute dread as he sneers victoriously at her:

“Don’t worry, Carrots. It’ll be our little secret.”

A million thoughts come flooding into her mind, all of them equally as important. All her voice will allow her to let out, however, is, “Wh-Why did you just _do_ that?”

The smallness of her voice would have embarrassed her, had she not already met the level of humiliation that she know knew to be the absolute limit to what a mammal was capable of experiencing.

He leans in again, and she thinks _Oh my god, he’s going to kiss me again_ , and part of her is cheering, and she closes her eyes, kept still again by the battle between sense and desire in her mind, only to feel his breath not on her lips, but against her ear:

“It’s called a hustle, sweetheart.”

And with that, he slams his paws into her chest and launches her into the alley wall across from him.

Air explodes from her lungs as she hits the wall and the ground _hard_. For a few moments, everything is white noise, and she tries several times to draw breath again, each time fighting the tightness in her chest that wants her to remain empty. Eventually, the burning in her lungs overpowers the tightness, and Judy gulps down oxygen in a frenzy, squirming on the dirty concrete while pawing at her chest. The spots in her vision clear, the ringing in her ears subsides, and she sits up, spinning to look at the spot she’d been in only a second ago.

The fox ( _Nick_ , her brain reminds her, and she ignores how slick a name it truly is) is gone.

She wants to search for him again. She wants to tear into him for all of the snark, all of the flirty teases, all of the insults and lies, and for throwing her into a wall after _kissing_ her. She also wants to _thank_  him for it, and to ask if he’s seeing anybody, and see whether or not he’s free Saturday night. More than anything, she wants to scream in frustration at the cauldron of confused feelings her stomach has become because of this sly, _dumb_ fox who stole something (she didn’t even remember  _what_ ) from a flower shop.

Instead, she gets up slowly, dusts off her uniform, and begins trudging back in the direction of her golf cart, telling herself to put it behind her, that it’s only her first day on the job and she doesn’t need any trouble like _that_  to start her career off, and that the solution to her newfound emotional issues awaited her, hopefully, at her apartment _after_ work.

_It’s probably best to just not even think about him anymore_ , she advises herself.

_After all, you’re probably never going to see him again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Post: http://theunrealhorseman.tumblr.com/post/146714031097/cops-and-robbers


	8. Downtown Train

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA Nick has to wait for the late-night metro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwz2aVDqEa8
> 
> Tumblr Prompt Request: “forget it. you fucking suck.”

“Judy, _wait_!”

But the bunny in the lilac dress continues on her steady path towards the station, and Nick has to jog to keep up with her. He reaches out a paw, as though it might somehow get her to slow down, even though she’s not bothering to look back at him and he’s nowhere close enough to actually grab her and get her attention.

“Just talk to me!” he calls to her, desperation leaking through his voice. “Please!”

She folds her arms and, reaching the foot of the stairs leading up to the train platform, halts. Turning, she bores holes into him with her eyes, the large, shimmering orbs vividly violet and at the same time almost orange with fiery anger.

“And what if I don’t want to talk to you anymore, Nick?”

He hesitates, just for a moment, then says, “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have stopped.”

Judy keeps her eyes locked on his, and for a minute doesn’t move and doesn’t respond. Then she turns again and heads up the stairs. Nick follows her, and much to his relief, she doesn’t yell at him not to this time. He falls in step beside her, trying to gauge the expression on her face. She’s unreadable.

“Please don’t just go,” he begs, clasping his paws together. “I need to talk to you.”

“I never said no, Nick,” she deadpans in return. “If you wanna talk, talk.”

Something about the way she tells him this feels very much like a threat, but he ignores it and begins, “I know you’re mad at me. Hell, _I’m_ mad at me, too.”

“You didn’t _sound_ mad back there. You sounded embarrassed.”

“I wasn’t–” He groans and shakes his head. “It was just sudden, you know? Everything was fine, we were dancing, eating cake, having a great time, and then-”

“And then I had to go and ruin it by telling you how much I liked you,” she interrupts, eyes fixed firmly on the steps in front of her. “How inconsiderate of me.”

“No, _no_. You didn’t ruin anything. _I_  messed up, I know I did, but… it’s not like it was an easy conversation to have anyways.”

“Of course it was, Nick,” she spits. “I tell you I like you, you say it back, then maybe we make a dinner date or something and we go right back to celebrating Clawhauser’s birthday.”

“Except you _didn’t_ tell me you liked me, Judy. If it was just that, we’d be fine, we’d have just kept on dancing and partying and it would have been great. But that’s not what you did.”

She leaps ahead suddenly, scaling the last chunk of stairs in two strong bounds, and leaves him to scramble after her up onto the platform. As they head for the appropriate stop, a voice from above announces that the next train to the Downtown area will be arriving slightly behind schedule.

“Judy,” he calls, trying to keep up with her. “ _Judy_.” He reaches out and this time he is close enough to grab her arm, keeping a hold on her even when she attempts to tear away from him. A gentle tug brings her close, so he can kneel down and look her in the eyes.

“You do realize that saying you like someone, and confessing your love before tackling them and kissing them, are two very different things, right?”

He winces the moment the words leave his mouth, mentally condemning himself for speaking with such a condescending tone to her. Her arms slip from his grasp without any resistance from him. She rubs it as she takes a step back from him, her head cast downwards in a gloomy slump.

“Sorry. I didn’t think it would be so _disgusting_ to you.”

The pain in her voice makes his ears flatten against his head. He watches her trudge over to a bench and sit to wait for the train. Part of him wants to leave right in that moment, to avoid any confrontation with her, to go back and enjoy the rest of Clawhauser’s party in the hopes that he’ll show up to work tomorrow and Judy will be there waiting for him, back to her joyful, bubbly, normal self. But that part of him has already done enough to ruin the night for them both, so he straightens himself up, strolls over to the bench, and seats himself right next to her.

“You aren’t disgusting to me. Nothing about you is disgusting.” He wants her to respond, to give any acknowledgement of him and his words, but she just keeps her eyes on the transit map standing across from their seats. So he tries something he knows _has_  to work:

“I love you, Judy.”

They are only the smallest of changes—a twitch of the nose, a tinting of the cheeks, a minuscule flop of the ear closest to him—but they let him know that he’s getting her attention, so he says it again, _stronger_  now, reaching out and taking her paw in his and squeezing it so she knows he means it (and by god, he realizes, he _does_  mean it).

“I love you. I really do, and I’m sorry if I made you think I didn’t.”

He smiles as he says it, feeling lighter with each passing word. Their paws remained clasped, and after a moment of silence between them, he feels her squeeze him back. A knot tightens in his chest at the same time that it feels like it might burst open from the pressure building inside, and he has to suppress letting it escape in a loud, barking laugh. The pressure lessens when he sees the tears swelling up in her eyes, notices the quiver in her unsmiling lips, and hears the same pain he’d heard after pushing her off of him back at Clawhauser’s house, concentrated into a choked-up whisper:

“I know that.” She turns to look at him. “You think I don’t know that?’

“I– You–”

Judy chuckles without joy and wipes her eyes. “I wouldn’t have done what I did if I didn’t know you felt the same way that I do. I’m not _that_  dumb.”

“You’re not dumb at all,” he murmurs. “You’re amazing.” His thumb strokes the back of her paw, and he glances down at it. “More amazing than anything I could ever deserve, really.”

“ _No_ , Nick, don’t you _dare_  try and say that’s why you stopped me–”

“It isn’t.”

“Then what is?”

Eyes fixated on their joined limbs, Nick sighs and mutters, “Because I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you know how many mammals would hate us, just for being together? How many of them would try and tear us apart?” Their eyes meet again. “I couldn’t live with myself if you got hurt because of it. You don’t deserve that, no matter how much I want to be with you.”

He smiles at her, feeling a fresh wave of relief wash over him as he leans closer to her. Bringing a paw to her cheek, he nudges her to tilt her head down so that he can kiss her forehead–

–and gets _shoved_  to the other end of the bench, slamming his spine right into it’s metal armrest. He yelps and grabs his back in a somewhat-vain attempt to try and rub the pain away. Judy watches him with her jaw unhinged, her expression one of seething disbelief.

“Was that supposed to make me _forgive_ you?” she asks.

Nick merely gapes at her and massages his lower torso.

_“Well?”_

“You wanted me to tell you the truth!” he blurts out.

“And that’s _it_? You’re just… just… _afraid_  of what other mammals might say?”

“I’m not _afraid_ , Judy–”

“ _Yes_ , Nick, you _are_!” she yells. “I _know_  you are!”

The shock fogging his brain curdles into anger, and he snarls at her, “Well if you know so much, why did you even ask?”

“Because I thought you’d be better than that!” she hollers, and suddenly her anger cracks open and all of the sorrow stored up inside her comes pouring down her cheeks. “I thought– I _hoped_ , that maybe I was _wrong_  this time, that you were smart enough to realize-”

“Smart enough to realize _what_?” he asks.

“The fact that it doesn’t _matter_ what anyone else says or does!” Judy groans and leans back in her seat, not bothering to wipe away the streaks coating her face. “Of _course_  I know that there are gonna be mammals who hate us for being together, but I don’t _care_ about them, Nick!” She turns her head to him, cheek mashing against the head of the bench. “I care about _you_.”

“And I care about _you_ , Judy–”

He reaches to take her paw in his again, but she draws it away without breaking eye contact and spits, “Not enough to ignore a few lousy insults. Not enough to kiss me in public.” Her face dissolves again, and she shudders. “Not enough to _love me_.”

He watches a tear dribble across the bridge of her nose, and glances around the platform. What few mammals there are pay them no mind, despite the fact that they _must_ be able to hear what’s happening between them.

“ _God_ , you’re doing it _now_ , too,” Judy whimpers, gritting her teeth. “You’re worried that I might cause a scene. You’re _that_ scared of drawing attention to yourself.”

“I told you, I don’t care about that,” he mutters, eyes now remaining locked  “If anyone hurt you-”

“Am I that weak to you?” she cries. “Do I look like I’d just _give up_  if a mammal tried to break us up?”

“Just because you’re strong enough, doesn’t mean you should have to deal with it.”

“But I _have_  been dealing with it, Nick!” She jolts up in her seat, fury and misery now blended within her expression in perfect harmony, and yanks on her ears. “I’ve had to deal with the fact that I’m a bunny my _whole life_ , just like you’ve had to deal with the fact that you’re a fox. No one else ever believed in me or my dreams…” Her ears slip out of her paws and settle behind her head. “…except you.”

Nick’s mouth is open a crack, as if he might whisper something to her, but no noise passes his lips.

“I thought that might’ve made it work,” she continues, voice barely above a whisper, “because I knew how much it meant to you to know I believed in you, too. I thought that, as long as we believed in each other, regardless of what species we were, we were stronger than anything anyone could throw at us…”

Her violet eyes twinkle, the last bit of moisture escaping onto her cheeks. With one final sigh, Judy lifts her paws and wipes her face, cleaning away the dark, damp streaks of fur. When she lowers them, her expression is one of calm, unbroken stoicism.

“But I guess I was wrong,” she states. “You clearly would rather not have to deal with anything too difficult, and now that I’ve considered it, I don’t think I’d like to, either.” She turns and faces forward, flattening her dress on her lap. “I can only help you so much, Nick. You need to learn to help yourself.”

He snaps out of his stupor, finally, and edges closer to her, insisting, “Judy, you know how much I’ve changed since I met you–”

“–and that’s why I believe you can still change more,” she finishes. “Only you can choose to do it, though. I can’t do it for you.” Her lip quivers, but her voice remains even as she goes on, “And what you did at the party tells me you don’t want to change right now. So I won’t rush you.”

“No, Judy, we can work this out-”

“Some other time, Nick.” Her face hardens, trying to retain its cool and collected appearance. The ghost of a snarl appears every few seconds, though, and he can see how much she’s trying not to break again. Yet still, he prods her:

“Judy, I _love_  you-”

“I’d like you to stop now,” she growls through her teeth.

But he can’t, and he prods, and he prods, and he tells her, “Judy, I’m _sorry_ ,” and then she explodes at him.

“ _JUST FORGET IT!”_

The silence they sit in then is frigid and suffocating. He wants to say something, anything that will make them okay, but the twisted rage on her face is so raw and biting and _solid_  that he begins to wonder if _okay_ is even an option now. The ground beneath her feet becomes the only thing he can stand to look at that’s anywhere close to her, and he’s waiting for the quiet to end, for something to change that’ll save him from the ugliness welling up in his stomach.

Then she speaks, and he wishes he could have remained in silence:

“You fucking suck.”

His ears twitch—the train is coming.

Eyes glued to the floor, Nick just sits as Judy continues. She’s quiet now, and sounds impossibly fragile, as though cursing at him (at _him_ , for the very first time since they’d met) had made her irreversibly weaker, and if she isn’t careful with the way she uses her words she may simply shatter:

“Just– Sometimes I can’t _stand_ you, Nick.” Her voice flutters along a delicate line between sob and snarl. “Why do you like _hurting_ yourself so much?”

He can’t answer. He doesn’t know one.

The ground shakes as the train thunders into the station, pulling to a stop beside the two. Nick watches Judy’s feet thump onto the floor and carry her over to the platform, and finally he works up the strength to stand again.

“No,” Judy commands, putting an arm between them as she steps onto the train. “You’re taking the next one.”

“But Judy-”

“I’m _done_ ,” she declares, and then they are separated at last, by the doors of the train car.

His phone is out before the train even begins to move. Mashing in her speed dial number, he stares at her through the window as he lifts the phone to his ear and waits. Judy simply stares back, her arms folded again, ignoring the dim glow leaking from a pocket hidden within the folds of her dress. The train pulls out, and as she leaves with it, she makes a show of yanking her phone out and jabbing at its screen. Her answering machine informs him she’s not available at the moment, and that he should leave a message after the tone.

The train rushes away, leaving him alone on the platform, fiddling erratically with his phone to get to her contact again. Before he can tap it again, though, he gets a text from her:

_If you try that again, I’m blocking your number. DON’T TALK TO ME._

He is scared now, feels as though he might actually start crying out of the fear her threat plants in him. Yet still his thumb hovers over the Call button. He scans the message over and over again, taking in every pixel of every letter of every word in it, trying to decipher the secret code of her texts’ tone. After a while, he closes his phone app, but keeps his eyes glued to the screen of his device. A minute’s hesitation passes before he opens his conversation with her and, going against the part of him that had led him to this moment, writes her back:

_see you tomorrow, then. ill get us coffee, what you want?_

He knows perfectly well exactly how Judy likes her coffee (2 sugars, 2 creamers), but he needs her to tell him something, needs her to not have gotten onto that train and escaped from their shared life forever, before he can be okay again. So he asks, and prays she’ll tell him and add that of course she’ll see him tomorrow, silly, how could they _not_  when they work together _every single day_.

The next train comes and goes, but he remains still, waiting for a text that will tell him it’s okay. He waits, and waits, and _waits_ …

Eventually, the trains stop coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Post: http://theunrealhorseman.tumblr.com/post/146949427455/downtown-train


	9. Someone to Lean On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA Nick is too okay with being alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj5ScTpFPPo
> 
> Tumblr Prompt Request: “letting go hurts… a lot.”

The coffee scalds his paws, and he pays it no mind. The steam rises up and coats his vision in a dull fog, blurring the glow of the streetlights so that they seem like enormous stars hovering just above him, beacons in the browns and greens and blacks of the night-stricken park. There is a stillness hanging about him, and he likes the feeling it gives him: time is stuck in this place, and it will not go on so long as _he_  does not go on. A deal he finds very appealing, and is all too happy to take, prepared to sit endlessly in the dimness, peering through steam at a world swallowed up in darkness.

“Nick?”

His ears twitch, but he keeps still. The soft padding of feet grows louder. Out of the corner of his eye he sees a shadow grow larger, creeping across the yellow-tinted stone of the path leading to his seat. For only a moment, he wonders how he possibly could have been found, before deciding he really doesn’t care.

“Nick?” Judy repeats, tilting her head to look him in the eye. “Do you need to talk?”

For the first time in what feels like ages, Nick blinks, dragging himself out of the vacant reverie with which he’d been regarding the darkness ahead of him. He looks over at Judy, examines her like some foreign object whose origin needs determining, and then, in a moment of recognition, smiles at her.

“Hey, Carrots. Fancy seeing you here this time of night.”

Hearing the void in his voice, she steps closer to him, reaches a cautious paw out, and asks, “What are you doing out here?”

The coffee cup fidgets in his paws. “Oh, you know, needed a pick-me-up. Nice night, decided to enjoy it, you know how much I love this little spot.” He sips the bitter beverage, ignores the pain receptors screaming at the heat searing away his taste buds, and goes back to staring out at the dark through his makeshift mist. When Judy doesn’t respond, his eyes can’t help but flicker to her. The look she has on threatens to collapse him, so he cocks his head to the empty bench spot beside him and mutters, “Take a load off, why don’t ya?”

The bunny hesitates, worried by all of the emotion he isn’t showing, but nevertheless hops up onto the bench and sits, keeping her eyes on Nick’s. Her stare is never matched, though, as Nick sips once more at his coffee, pupils pointed straight ahead. They sit in silence for a long, heavy moment, before she reaches her paw out and touches his arm.

“Nick,” she says, in that tone of voice that drives him quietly insane whenever he hears it, “Talk to me, please.”

“I _am_  talking,” he snaps, surprising himself as much as her. He winces the moment she flinches back, tries to hide his expression in his drink, and fails. Sighing, he lowers the cup, stares into the bitter browns swirling inside it, and grunts, “Fine. What do you want me to say?”

“Whatever you need to, Nick.” She squeezes his arm, drawing his eyes to her paw. “I’m here.”

His gaze drifts up to her face, and her pitying look makes him wish she were gone, tempts him to find out what it would take to get her to leave him and never come back. He washes this poisonous urge down with more coffee and keeps his eyes forward, plastering his face with indifferent boredom.

“Judy, listen,” he finally sighs. “I’ll be fine, really. If you’re expecting me to go on some long rant about how horrible everything is and how ‘it’s just not fair,’ you’re gonna be disappointed.”

“Don’t lie to me.” Her stare is stern and firm. “I know you’re hurting. You can’t hide that from me.”

“Of course I’m hurting,” Nick spits, his voice going quiet. He leans forward, holding his cup just under his muzzle so that the steam can warm his face, and grinds his teeth before telling her in an empty mutter, “My mother’s dead.”

The steam and the heat of the coffee provides no comfort, he finds. The chill that blankets him is far too strong.

“It sucks,” he continues, attempting to keep himself from focusing on the frost creeping through his veins. “It really, _really_  sucks. Letting go hurts… _a lot_. But… I barely knew her, Carrots.” He shuts his eyes and frowns. “I ignored her for over a decade, and we’d only started talking again, what, a _month_  before…”

Judy squeezes his arm when he trails off, and the urge to scare her off roars up in his belly. Instead, he heaves his shoulders in a shrug, and sips. The burning sensation is no longer something he can savor.

“She might as well have already been dead and buried in the ground.”

“Nick!” Judy yells, tugging at his fur. “She’s still your mother!”

“ _Was_ , Fluff,  _was_. And she did her best.” Another sip and then, quieter: “Even with a screw-up like me, she did her best.”

“You aren’t a screw-up, Nick, and she knew it.”

He finds himself too weak to challenge her, and so says nothing.

“And it doesn’t matter how long you two did or didn’t talk,” Judy goes on. “She loved you, and she was proud of you.”

“Yeah, I don’t doubt it,” he chuckles, his face twisting into a grim smirk. “No matter what I did, I just couldn’t get her to hate me.”

“Stop it, Nick,” Judy orders, pulling his arm once more. He groans in response, then goes quiet. He glares into the murk of his drink, letting the steam fill his vision, wishing it could cover him up and let him disappear so that he might not have to continue talking this way.

“I never got to tell her about us, you know,” he grunts, realizing even as the words leave his mouth how crazy it is that he’d never done so. “I should have called her, but… I wasn’t used to having her around again. Didn’t think she’d care…”

“That’s okay,” Judy assures, leaning against him. He paw rubs up and down his arm soothingly, encouraging him to keep speaking.

“Probably for the best,” he says, letting a small smile onto his face. “The whole interspecies thing would’ve upset her. She wanted grandkits, and I don’t know if you and I are even size-compatible… _yet_.” He chuckles, and feels her laugh gently with him.

“She would have _loved_  us,” Judy tells him. “She liked me a lot.”

“You think _everyone_ likes you.”

“That’s because they _do_ , all of them,” she insists, and he chuckles again. Smiling, she simply sits with him for a moment, savoring the brief, happy moment. But, being brief, it passes, and she asks, “…Can you tell me more about her?”

A moment hangs still between them, and she tenses, ready for the walls to come up around him again and block her out. He glances at her from the corner of his eye, keeping his expression masked with a turn of his head. Looking back into the night, he drinks from the cup once more and lets them both stew in their own thoughts, before letting out a heavy sigh.

“Okay, Carrots,” he says, watching the steam pour from his mouth and rise into the air. “What do you want to know?”

The bunny smiles, and asks, and Nick answers. He tells Judy of all the things his mother did for him when he was younger, all of the cut-off sandwich crusts and warmed citrus soda stomachache cures and comforting minutes-long post-nightmare hugs, and the more he speaks of her, the more she appears real before him, coming out of the dark between the trees without making a sound. He feels his body lightening, the tension in his muscles collapsing along with his walls, and after a minute he feels, for the first time since the call from his mother’s neighbor that had uprooted his universe, like himself. There is no more mask, and now she’s standing in front of him and smiling, giving him that look she always did whenever he came home after school, the one that always cheered him up, even on days when he’d felt like throwing himself into a wall and screaming at how unfairly they all treated him there, and he looks and smiles back at her and–

He can’t remember the way the corners of her mouth turned up.

“Nick?”

It occurs to him that he has been silent for some time now. Breaking his stare, he looks down at Judy. Keeping her paw on his arm, she’s staring up at him with a nervous sort of fear glinting in her eyes. It’s more painful to look at than any kind of pitying look from before, but he feels no urge to spit and yell and make her hurt as well for it. Instead, he faces forward again. Blackness stares back at him.

“I should’ve seen her sooner,” he realizes, squinting into the inky night. “I– I could have spent more time–”

He pauses, not knowing what it is they could have spent time on, and with a churning rush in his gut he sees in the dark the gaping hole in their history that was never filled.

“I’m alone,” he mumbles. The words spill out of him without warning, and once released he knows he can’t put them back in him. So they dance in his ears, taunting him with their pathetic tone, and he embraces them. “I’m alone, and it’s my own fault. I– I spent all those years ignoring her, because I was nothing special, and she knew it, and _I_  knew it. I never saw her, or spoke to her, and sometimes I even– I _forgot_  her. I pushed her out of my life because I knew she didn’t deserve to have someone like me for a son… Until– Until I finally _did_  something with my life, and I thought I could look her in the eye now and tell her I wasn’t a waste and _mean_  it this time…”

The steam from the coffee is misting his eyes, but he doesn’t blink.

“…and then she died,” he breathes, scrunching his face up in a foggy confusion. “Right when I could see her again, right when I thought I could maybe make up for how horrible I’d been, she died, and now I’m– I– I don’t have _parents_ anymore. I don’t have a  _family_ anymore, and I think that, maybe… maybe I _deserve_ that.” He looks out at the void before him and speaks to it, almost in a question, “Maybe I need to be alone.”

The paw brushes his cheek so gently, so suddenly, that he jolts back in his seat. The coffee sloshes in its cup, small rivulets spilling over the rim and dribbling down his fingers. His head snaps to the side, and he glares down at Judy with such shock that she feels the urge to shrink back and let him be. But she holds fast to him, running her thumb up and down his cheek while her other paw squeezes his arm tight and close to her chest.

“Don’t ever think you’re alone, Nick.” Her eyes shimmer in the low, yellow light of the posts around them. “I will _never_  leave you.”

He stares at her for a moment, trying to control his lungs and the pulse beating between them, before telling her, “But you _can_ , if you want. My mother, she couldn’t… couldn’t stop _caring_  about me, no matter how badly I hurt her, or how much I didn’t deserve to be cared about. If I was that horrible to you–”

“ _God_ , Nick, stop talking about yourself that way–”

“If I pushed you away like I did to _her_ …”

“Don’t _say_  that–”

“You can leave,” he offers, his eyes filled with a calm delirium she’s never seen in him before. “You _should_  leave. You can let me go, Judy. Don’t let me make the same mistakes with you.”

They are both having trouble keeping their breaths quiet, and neither of them say anything to hide it. Judy sniffles, doesn’t bother to wipe her eyes, lets the droplets run down her cheeks. She stares up at him, her mouth half-open and stuck on a word she cannot begin right away. Finally, after an eternity in which she waits for his outburst, waits for him to shove her away and demand she never touch him again, and finds that nothing of the sort happens, she says:

“Nicholas Wilde. You. Are. My. Family. I will always be there when you need me, and I will always do everything I can to let you know how much I care about you, and I will always make sure you are _never_  alone again, because I love you. I _promise_  you that.”

She lets go of his arm and cups his other cheek, running gently through his fur. She feels his shiver, hears him draw in a sharp breath, sees his lips move in a soundless mimicry of her own words, mouthing the word “promise” in slow, shaking syllables. Emotions boil over in her belly, and she lets a tearful laugh escape her.

“Yes. I promise, Nick,” she gasps, “I promise I love you.” And she mashes their mouths together, sealing her promise with her lips. 

He lets the coffee spill over, lets the cup slip from his paws, lets it all fall by the wayside so that his arms can wrap around her small form and pull her into him because she is _everything_  in that moment. He molds her to fit perfectly against him, and sighs against her mouth, and screws his eyes shut so her touch and her scent and her taste are all that he has. He feels her reassurance, her understanding, her empathy and her compassion and her love and her love and her _love_ …

All there, in that moment. And suddenly he can’t hold on anymore.

Judy holds his head to her chest until his shaking stops, and the hissed sobs go quiet, and his claws are no longer digging into her back. She sits in silence, her eyes locked on a lamppost off in the distance, and when he is still she looks down at the back of his shirt.

“Better?” she asks, and his response is to shiver against her and squeeze the parts of her he’s holding. Out of the corner of her eye, she notices the dark, steaming puddle creeping across the ground beneath them and inches her feet away from it. A minuscule smile glows on her face, and she whispers in his ear, “Do you need some more coffee?”

Something that might have been a laugh on any other night trembles out of him.

“No.” He stiffens in her arms, yawning. “I’m too tired for coffee.”

“Good.” She pats his head and pulls him into a hug, sliding his head over her shoulder. “Then you’re coming back to my apartment with me.”

Nick says nothing, but signals his answer with a shuddering sigh that Judy feels pass from his chest to hers and the gentle rub of a nod against her cheek. She holds him out in front of her, running her paws along his wet face to rub away at the streaks on his cheeks so that they don’t look so dark. He watches her with emptied eyes, expression liquid, mouth curling up and down every second. His paws lie in her lap, looking like those of a string-less puppet. 

“Let’s go, Nick.” Giving him a soothing look, she breaks their embrace and slides off the bench, making sure to dodge the spreading coffee spill. When she sees him hesitate to follow her, she grins and reaches out to him.

“Come on. Take my paw.”

He does, and he holds it tightly, and will not let go until much later, when he is asleep beside her.

He does not look back into the dark as they leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Post: http://theunrealhorseman.tumblr.com/post/147806888862/someone-to-lean-on


	10. True Love Waits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA the Western AU where no one talks like they're in a Western

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr Prompt Request: "why do I love you?"

“Wilde.”

Bogo sets the pen in his hoof down on his desk and peers over the rim of his spectacles. The fox in front of him comes into focus, as does the rabbit standing patiently beside him. When she meets his gaze, her grip tightens on the chain of the handcuffs latched to the fox’s wrists. He acknowledges her with a blink, then looks back at the taller animal, who grins in return.

“Howdy, Sheriff,” Nick chirps. “Been a while, huh?”

“I found him trying to steal from Jerry’s inventory down at the saloon, Sheriff,” Judy states, keeping stock still at an attentive stance. “He managed to destroy five bottles of whiskey before he finally surrendered.”

“Well, _actually_ ,” the fox retorts, not looking at the bunny beside him, “those bottles only got broken because your cute little deputy here decided to tackle me when my arms were full.”

“You’ll refrain from calling me ‘cute,’ fox,” she warns, leering up at him with a poisonous look in her eyes, “if you know what’s good for you.”

“Pff, you know you love me,” he teases. Turning to look down at her, he continues, “And frankly, Carrots, I’m hurt. I thought we were on first name basis here, what with how many times you’ve slapped me in these handcuffs of yours-”

“ _Ahem_.”

The two quarreling mammals look up from each other and over at Bogo. The buffalo folds his arms and leans back in his chair, regarding both of them with the same air of patient disdain.

“I assume you haven’t just brought him in here to argue over nicknames with me, Deputy Hopps,” he drones.

Judy’s ears shoot up. “Oh, right! I need the keys to the Overnight Cell.”

Bogo raises an eyebrow at her. “The Overnight Cell? A longer detention isn’t necessary, you think?”

Her eyes shift to the floor. “Normally I _would_  think so, Sheriff,” she explains. “It’s just that, well–”

“Ol’ Jerry and I reached an agreement after Carrots here shattered his whiskey bottles,” Nick interrupts. “I’ll be working off the cost of them, starting tomorrow, with Cottontail here serving as my overseer.”

Judy fights the angry blush that bubbles up in her cheeks. Through gritted teeth she adds, “The Overnight Cell is closer to the saloon, and less of a hassle to cart him in and out of.”

Nick smirks, and concludes, “Besides, I know the rules here, Buffalo Butt. It’s only my first offense of the year, and it was only a petty crime at best. Nothing to throw me in the _real_  slammer for.”

Shrugging off the childish nickname, Bogo looks between the disgruntled bunny and smarmy fox, unsure for a second how much to accept the alibi he’s just heard. With a heavy sigh, he removes his spectacles and stands. Trudging towards the back of the room, he grunts, “It _has_  been quite a while since we last caught you in this town, hasn’t it?”

“What can I say, Sheriff?” the fox replies, jingling his chains with a shrug. “Try as he might, Ol’ Wild Times Nicky just won’t keep outta Zootopia.”

The buffalo snatches a small key ring from a rack of them at the far end of the room. The two keys attached to it clink against one another with each step he takes back towards his desk. When he reaches it, he sets the ring down and returns Nick’s grin.

“Well, I’d say I missed having you around, Wilde…” The grin stretches as he slides the ring across the desk towards Judy. “…but I’d be lying.”

“You wound me, Sheriff,” Nick says, putting a paw to his chest and jutting his lip out in faux offense.

Judy snatches up the ring and nods. “Thank you, sir. I promise he won’t be bothering you again any time soon.”

“I’ll be holding you to that, Deputy,” the buffalo mutters. He slides his spectacles back on, picks his pen up, and returns to the paperwork on his desk.

Judy tugs on Nick’s chains, pulling him towards the door to the office. “Come on, fox.”

“Ow, hey, hold on!” the fox blurts, untangling his arms to keep his wrists from twisting. “I’m coming, I’m coming!”

The rays of the sun pierce their eyes as they step out of Bogo’s office, making them pause at the doorstep. Nick growls, unable to shield his eyes thanks to his cuffs, kept yanked down to his waistline by the stern deputy at his side. He squints down at his feet, letting the smallest amount of light possible slip between his eyelids.

“Ugh, why couldn’t you bring me in at night?” he complains. “This is cruel and unusual punishment.”

“Quiet,” Judy orders, staring at the building across from them until her own eyes adjust to the daylight. Gripping the key ring in her paw, she tugs on his cuffs and pulls him out into the street.

“What, I can’t even talk now?” He blinks a few more times before daring to look up from the ground. “Why the cold shoulder, Carrots? It’s only me.”

She pads down the dusty road, keeping her eyes on its end and her paws tugging him along towards it. Nick sighs and rolls his eyes.

“Fine, I’ll just talk for the both of us, then.”

Again, no answer. The fox’s gaze trails around the street, trying to find anything particularly interesting to focus on. He grins and nods to every mammal they pass, keeping his conversation directed at her.

“You know, I really did miss this place. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s a dirty little dump in the middle of buck-ass nowhere, but hey, even a no-good thief like me can feel homesick sometimes, right?”

Nick slows as they pass the general store, spotting something near its entrance. Squinting, he continues, “After all, I knew I still had _one thing_  to look forward to…” His speech follows his footsteps’ lead as his slowdown becomes a full stop, and he tugs at his chains to make Judy halt in her tracks as well. Ignoring her yelp of surprise, he grins and yells to the small mammal loitering across the street:

“Finnick, is that you?”

The tiny fox looks up from the ground, appearing both confused and annoyed at the sound of his own name. Then he sees Nick in handcuffs waving stupidly at him, and a condescending sneer appears on his face.

“The _fuck_  are you doing back here, Wilde?” the fennec calls back, rolling the stalk of wheat in his mouth from one corner of his lips to the other. “Thought you finally wised up and got outta this dump.”

“You know, I tried, I really did,” Nick says, forgetting the chains around his wrists completely as he shrugged. “But confound it, poor Deputy Cottontail here just couldn’t stand a life that didn’t have me in it. She simply _begged_ me to come back and spice things up for her again.”

Finnick looks over at the unamused bunny and smirks, “Yeah, I _bet_ she did.”

Catching his tone of voice all too well, Judy ends the conversation with a yank on Nick’s chains that almost send him sprawling into the dirt.

“Enough,” she states, tugging them both back into a state of motion. “No chatting with civilians.”

“Oho, she _speaks_!” Nick twists his neck to look back at Finnick and calls, “Sorry, Finn, we’ve got some business to take care of! We’ll chat later, have a round of drinks on me, huh?”

The fennec responds with a disgusted shake of his head. Straightening up, the tiny fox turns and trudges on into the store, punting the door open with a feisty kick. The door drifts shut on its own, and before it closes Nick hears a rough female voice yell out, “Hey, no children allowed unsupervised,” followed by Finnick’s screech of “Shut the _fuck_  up, Honey!”

“Poor guy,” the red fox tuts, shaking his head. “Can never catch a break.”

“I said _quiet_ ,” Judy growls. “No more talking until we reach the cell.”

Nick lets out a gruff snort and says, “Why are you taking this so seriously, Carrots? It’s not like this is new to anyone, they’ve all seen you take me in before. No one cares if you follow protocol or not. To them you’ll just be that same, cute little bunny who _still_  thinks she can be a real lawmaker.”

Her head swivels and locks to stare him down, and the look in her eyes immediately warns him that a line has been crossed. Breaking his calm demeanor for only a second, Nick swallows hard and clams up, trying (and failing _miserably_ ) to hide the nervous twitch her eyes instill in him with a lame stretch.

They turn a corner, and Jumbo Jerry’s Saloon comes into view, a vast, two-story behemoth of a building that casts a shadow in the afternoon sun, blanketing a good half of the crossroad it sits at the corner of. Across from it, just out of reach of said shadow, is a much smaller and windowless shack. It stands separate from the rest of the town, an isolated block of wooden planks marking the end of the township of Zootopia. Beyond it lies an endless plane of scorched rock and shriveled shrubbery, a void of anti-life that appeared to force whatever hoped to stay alive into the town, if only to keep away from the surrounding deathtrap a day more. The deathly backdrop gives the building all the appearance of a large wooden tombstone, sitting alone in the middle of the desert, forgotten by the rest of the world long ago—a paradise of isolation, so long as it was seen from the right angle.

“Ah, cell sweet cell!” Nick cheers. “And this time it comes with an easy commute to work.” He leans down so that he can talk directly into Judy’s ear. “What _ever_  did I do to earn such _wonderful_  accommodations?”

“ _Shut it_ ,” the bunny hisses.

“Aw, come _on_ , Carrots,” he teases, “it was just a question.” He puts a claw to the back of her neck and drags it slowly upwards, slowing at the crown of her head before bringing it down the length of her ear, He whispers in it as he pinches the velvety tip, “No need to get so _emotional_.”

Judy shivers at the fox’s touch and blushes, failing miserably to fight a violent shade of scarlet from painting her cheeks. She spins to send him another death glare, and when he responds by wiggling his eyebrows at her she doubles her cadence and fully drags him the rest of the way towards the shack.

“Look at you, acting all annoyed like that, that’s just _adorable_!” Nick giggles once they’ve arrived, dusting himself off as she fumbles with the key ring. “You almost convinced me that you weren’t actually happy to see me. _Almost_.”

The key fits, the lock clicks, and Judy smashes the door open with both paws before pulling him inside. The building is as void of life as the desert it sits on the edge of, with only a cell and a small desk taking up any room in it. The cell itself is decorated only with a plain wooden bench for a bunk and a somewhat-fresh chamber pot pushed into the corner farthest from anything else in the area. Something thin and black skitters under the floorboards at the sound of the door striking the wall. Neither mammal pays it any mind as they enter.

“Get in the cell,” Judy demands.

“Admit it, Fluff,” Nick continues, ignoring her order completely. “You missed me _bad_.”

The deputy turns to shut the door behind her, and wonders aloud in faux pensiveness, “ _Hmm_. Did I miss you, your childish insults, your immature attitude, your stupid, petty crimes at all, these past six months?” She clicks the lock back into place, slides the deadbolt shut for good measure, and double-checks it all by jiggling the handle to see if anything budges. Then she turns, her inspection complete, and smiles at the fox.

“Yes, yes I did.”

She yanks his chains hard, pulling him down so she can wrap her free paw around the back of his head, and mashes their mouths together.

He’s surprised by the sudden movement, feels the urge to shove her away out of instinct. Then his lips register hers, and her tongue tickles against his teeth, and with a groan he lets his eyes flutter shut, leaning further into her as best he can without falling over.

“ _Finally_ ,” he mutters in the moment they take to breath again, and then he dives back in for more, and more, and _more_ , and soon enough she’s climbing onto him to better hold their faces together. With his arms still linked via handcuffs, he does his best to hold her in them and keep his balance. Eventually, her ferocity subsides a smidgen, and she holds his head out in front of her, watching him with half-lidded eyes while both their breaths’ slow.

“Hah…” Nick pants, feeling her warm, wispy gasps against his muzzle and resisting the temptation of her flushed face and pink, parted lips. “You were… _really_  eager, I guess… No wonder you didn’t want me talking to anyone else…”

“Cell. _Now_.”

He wiggles his eyebrows and his wrists. “Aren’t you gonna uncuff me, Fluff? How can I treat you right with these chains keeping me all tied up?”

“I’m not done with them,” the bunny answers, pressing her forehead against his, “and neither are _you_.”

For a split second, to her immense satisfaction, Nick’s eyes go _wide_.

“So,” she continues, running a finger down the length of his jaw, “do as I said, and _get in the cell_.”

He gulps at an obnoxiously loud volume and nods, frozen in fantastical thought while she slinks off of him and back down to the floor. Letting her tug him onward, they enter the cell. Judy shuts the door to it once he’s inside with her and makes sure it’s locked, checking and double-checking and triple-checking just as she’d done before. Then she turns and stalks towards Nick, now sitting patiently on the bunk-bench. She takes the key ring from around her wrist (where it had slid to when they’d been slobbering all over each other) and tosses it behind her, keeping her eyes on the grinning, chained-up fox awaiting her.

The ring lands just outside the door to the cell, where it settles and sits, undisturbed, for nearly an hour.

* * *

“You got a cigarette?”

Judy giggles weakly and rolls off of Nick, clinging to him to keep from tumbling off their shared bunk-bench.

“You know I don’t smoke,” she murmurs, rubbing her cheek against his chest. She shivers at the touch of his fur on her face and, breathing in his musk, holds back a groan of satisfied pleasure.

“That’s a shame,” Nick says, curling his arms around her. “Wonderful habit to pick up. The other deupties’d take you more seriously if you did it, I bet.”

Judy answers by squeezing herself tighter against him. Chuckling, the fox strokes her ears and kisses the top of her head.

“Better not get comfy, Deputy,” he breathes into her ear. “The Sheriff’ll be wondering what’s taking you so long.”

“He doesn’t give a rat’s ass what I do,” comes her muffled response. She burrows further into his embrace, reaching and pulling his tail over her like a blanket. “And even if he did, he can wait.”

“What if he can’t?” Nick teases, running his paws gently through her fur. “What if he’s already grown suspicious of us? What if he’s on his way here _right now_?” He leans in close, slipping his muzzle under her drooping ear, and whispers, “What if he’s been at the door this whole time, and he heard you _screaming_ my name?”

Judy wallops him on the nose, finally irked out of her state of chest-fur worshiping. Nick snickers and then falls silent, tucking himself against the curvature of her body. He watches her back pulse in time with the breaths that puff against his chest, relishing the quiet, heavy moment around them. In the stillness, he feels his guard lowering, pulled down by the tender touches of her paws.

“It’s really nice to see you again,” he whispers, matching the rhythm of her breaths with his own.

“Mm,” she hums, “it’s good to see you, too.” She pulls her face out of his fluff to gaze up at him with her wide, lavender eyes. “I meant it when I said I missed you, you know. It was… _lonely_ , without you.” Lifting a paw up to cup his cheek, she bites her lip before adding, “You could have at least told me you were leaving.”

“Hey, hey, I always come back,” he soothes, smiling down at her. “I just gotta lay low for a while sometimes, wait for the Sheriff to stop sniffing around for me. Besides, gives me a chance to go swindle suckers from all over the country. It’s more fun where they don’t know your name. Makes the hustle… _sweeter_.”

Judy frowns. “You know you don’t have to leave to avoid any serious jail time. You could just stop hustling animals.”

He snorts at her claim and chuckles, “Yeah, they’d _definitely_ believe me if I told them I was quitting crime.” He looks across the cell, where his gaze settles on the now-removed handcuffs sitting atop a pile of their clothes. His eyes narrow, and he grumbles, “A fox, going straight after two decades worth of criminal activity. _Sure_.”

“You know you’re better than this, Nick.” She bats her paw against his chest. “You don’t have to just be a criminal.”

“I can’t help it if everyone sees me that way.”

“ _I_  don’t.”

He looks back down at her, emerald eyes meeting amethyst ones. Judy smiles softly up at him. He stares at her in silence, contemplating whether or not he should kiss her again. In the end, he chooses to cup her cheek and offer a smile back to her.

“No,” he mutters, bringing his lips to her forehead, “you don’t.”

Judy giggles, and it sends a warm glow running down his spine. She feels it pass out of him in a shudder, and nudges her head up so that his lips meet hers again. The groan that escapes him then makes her shiver in return and hold his head still with her paws, as if staying together this way might freeze them in the moment forever. Only the soft sound of smacking lips gives away any illusion of stillness between the two.

When they part, Nick hesitates, his expression growing pensive and uncertain. He strokes Judy’s cheek with his thumb, watching her fur part at his touch and reform in the absence of it.

Finally, he says, “Come with me.”

“…What?”

“I want you to come with me, the next time I need to leave. You won’t have to be alone.”

But she’s already shaking her head. “You know I can’t do that, Nick.”

A growl boils in his throat. He tilts his head slightly, watching his own paw as it continues to stroke her cheek. In an absent mumble, knowing her answer before the question even leaves his lips, he asks, “Why not?”

Judy takes his paw and removes it from her cheek with a gentle squeeze. “Because it’s my duty to serve the mammals of this town. I can’t just abandon all that.”

His ears twitch at the sudden shift in her tone. A corner of his mouth twists in a half-hearted smirk, and he accuses, “Can’t, or _won’t_?”

“Both.” She takes his head in her paws again and brings their foreheads together. “I care about you, Nick, so, _so_  much. But this is what I’ve spent my whole life trying to do, and you’re not going to convince me to give it up.”

Nick stares her down, verdant meeting lavender in a stalemate of willpower. Judy feels his breath breeze against her chest. His grip on her loosens. In an almost imperceptible twitch, his arms move away from her.

“Do you have to do it?” he whispers, the distance in his voice clear and cold and afraid of her answer.

The bunny sighs and slides her paws down to his chest. Nudging the fox away, she rolls herself over and sits up, her tail fluttering against his chest. A series of pops rattle off from her spine as she slips off the bunk-bench and stretches her arms. Nick watches her in frustration, berating himself in his head for ruining the moment. He rolls onto his back, staring up at the chinks of light filtering down through the gaps in the ceiling’s wooden planks.

“Why do you even _want_  to stay here?” he asks, keeping his eyes turned upwards. “I’ve heard what the other deputies think of you. I know how this town feels about having a bunny keeping the peace.”

“If I cared even the _slightest_ bit what any of them thought,” Judy responds, trudging over to her discarded clothes, “do you thinkI _ever_  would have made it far enough to become a deputy?”

Nick looks over at her and watches her slip back into her clothes. Glancing around at the cell, he grunts, “Don’t even know what makes this place worth protecting,” and spits on the ground. “It’s a dump, stuck in the middle of a dead, dry desert, barely able to keep itself from burning to the ground.”

Judy pins her tin star back onto her chest and polishes it with her wrist. She turns, fully dressed once more, and puts her paws on her hips.

“This place isn’t a dump. It’s going to be a great city one day.”

The fox smirks at her, folding his paws behind his head to use as a pillow. “Oh yeah? And how are you so sure of that, Fluff?”

She folds her arms and shoots him a stern, determined glare. “Because in all of the towns I’ve visited since I left my own, in all the different places I’ve been and all the different styles of life I’ve seen, only this place had the guts to make a bunny an official enforcer of the law.”

His smirk dissipates. Watching her with a bewildered sort of admiration, he resists a smile as she raises her chin high and gives him one of her own.

“So I’m going to make Zootopia great, because I know it can be and it wants to be. I’m going to prove that anyone can be anything here, so long as they try everything they can to make themselves and the world around them a better place. It might not be perfect yet, but just you wait and see. I’m gonna fix that.”

With that, Judy gives him a sharp nod and starts towards the cell door. A paw extends to close it and stops short when she hears a slow clap coming from behind her. Turning, she smirks and leans against the door, watching the naked fox sit up and applaud her, his smile loving and genuine.

“Lovely little speech there, Carrots,” he teases, still trying to come off as sarcastic. “Totally crazy, but lovely nonetheless.” He lowers his paws and leans against the cell wall. “I can’t wait to see you put your money where your mouth is.”

She giggles, wiping at her cheek with a paw to try and force away the blush he’s given her. Stepping backwards out of the cell, she reaches again to shut the door, but pauses before she can close it all the way. Her eyes glance at the handcuffs.

“You know,” she starts, slowly, “I don’t have to do it alone.” Her eyes flicker back up to him. “If you just stayed here, maybe…” She bites her lip again, enough said to make clear the intention of her words.

Nick’s smile widens, but the coldness that had fogged his eyes when she told him it was possible to give up his criminal lifestyle returns at the same time, and she knows she’s lost him. He leans his head back, folding his arms, and says, “Probably not the best idea, Carrots. I wouldn’t know anything about making things better.”

She wants to tell him that he’s wrong, that she knows he’s so much more than a thief, that if he’d just stop hurting himself like this, stopped being the only one standing in the way of his own happiness, he could do such great things with his life.

She shuts the cell door instead.

“What, you’re not gonna handcuff me again?” he asks, the sarcastic, careless tone she knows and (usually) loves back at the forefront of his voice.

Shoving aside her melancholic thoughts, she grins at him and retorts, “Like you said, I have to get back to Bogo before he gets too suspicious. You know how to do it yourself by now, don’t you?”

"So you think I’ll just go ahead and cuff myself, instead of escaping thanks to your _utter incompetence_  as a deputy?”

Judy leans against the bars of the cell. “You’ll do it if you know what’s good for you. You remember what happened last time you tried running from me.”

“Mm, how could I forget?” He turns his head up, closing his eyes and smiling at the ceiling. “You couldn’t keep your paws _off_  me. Ugh, what a tussle that was. We got all _sweaty_  together…”

“Ugh, you’re disgusting,” she groans, stifling a chuckle and rolling her eyes as she steps back from the cell. “Why do I love you?”

Nick leers at her and spreads his legs apart, taunting, “If I had to guess…”

Finally she cracks, and bursts into a fit of giggles. Stifling them with a paw, she laughs, “Just get dressed before someone else comes in here and sees you,” before turning and heading for the door.

“Hey, Judy.”

She pauses with her paw on the latch. Turning, she finds Nick smiling at her, the sarcasm forced from his face once more, at least for that moment. He winks at her.

“Love you too.”

The latch slides open slowly. Judy coughs, failing miserably to hide her blush, and gestures again to Nick’s tossed aside clothes. “You should really get dressed,” she murmurs, eyes shifting from the cell bars to the floor and never to the fox’s loving smile. Then she opens the door, steps out into the blinding, hot afternoon, and leaves him to his cell.

Nick stares at the door, imprinting the memory of the blush so that he’ll always remember it and always remind _her_  of it, whenever it’ll frustrate her most. When it’s firmly singed into his subconscious, he lays back down on his bunk-bench, stretching himself out and settling in for a nap. He makes no movement to get up and grab the clothes on the floor.

 _It’s too hot to wear anything,_ he tells himself, _and besides, she’ll probably be the next one in here. She always is._

A yawn escapes him. Dust flutters through the thin beams of light above his head. He watches the particles dance, wondering for a brief moment how a star would look pinned to his favorite jacket, and in another minute he is asleep, snoring softly in the empty little shack on the edge of town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr Post: http://theunrealhorseman.tumblr.com/post/149134114038/true-love-waits


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